In 2018, on a four-day backpacking trip along the Continental Divide, Wyn Wiley put on a pair of black, knee-high boots with six-inch heels he鈥檇 packed on a whim. In the process of kicking up dirt and parading over societal assumptions, his alter ego, Pattie Gonia, was born. Post-trip, Wiley created a new Instagram account and uploaded clips from the trail. In less than a week, @pattiegonia had 12,000 followers. Today, she has more than 340,000.

Pattie鈥檚 fearlessness, love of 鈥淢other Natch,鈥� and unequivocal joy soon attracted outdoor brands, forcing her to grapple with just what type of influencer she wanted to be. What鈥檚 emerged is an advocate with an innate business savvy, a no-bullshit brand of environmentalism, and a deep commitment to elevating marginalized voices in the outdoor space.

Wiley, 28, agreed to answer some of our spicier questions about privilege, cancel culture, and industry accountability. But it was Pattie who showed up on our Zoom call, dressed to the nines. And as you鈥檒l see from the following conversation, Pattie means business.

You鈥檝e shared on Instagram how you didn鈥檛 feel welcome in the climate movement as a gay man. Why not?

Growing up, I experienced the climate movement as an extremely white, cisgendered, and straight space鈥攇ate-kept by one-uppery and perfection. I saw no leaders that were BIPOC or queer that showed me that it was a space that would welcome my efforts. Diversity wasn鈥檛 embraced at all. Nature shows us that diversity is important to any environment, so why isn鈥檛 the environmental movement focused on embracing diversity? Instead, nature has been weaponized against queer people for forever鈥擨 was told that my queerness was unnatural. These spaces are gate-kept to anyone who doesn鈥檛 fit this perfect little mold, and I鈥檓 not perfect. I鈥檓 in progress.

At the end of the day, you鈥檙e still a cisgender white male. How do you reconcile your privilege, platform, and popularity with the industry you want to see?

I started doing Pattie because I needed a form of self-expression that liberated me as a queer person and created queer community for others. I鈥檓 extremely grateful for the following that鈥檚 come of it and it鈥檚 not something I take lightly. My goal is to bust through that door for myself but to also hold it open and create opportunities for other people, including those with less privilege than myself. This often looks like me passing on an opportunity and suggesting someone else for it.

As Wyn, I do hold a lot of privilege. I look like and talk like and feel familiar to people who hold a lot of power in this industry. I want to utilize the familiarity to ally not only the queer community but also other diverse communities in the outdoors. For years before Pattie was born, I did creative direction for brands like Disney and Adidas, which is another form of privilege. Because I understand and can speak marketing language, I鈥檝e been able to make space for other people.

That initially looks like creating diverse relationships built on trust and authenticity. Then, I build on those relationships by using my platform and privilege to amplify, volunteer for, and fundraise for diverse organizations and nonprofits. In fact, that鈥檚 my main priority outside of supporting my immediate team. I know I am a Beyonc茅, but more often than not my role is to be a Kelly, you know?

What would you say is another industry gatekeeper?

This is going to be controversial, but wokeness in many forms鈥攅specially in woke language and woke culture鈥攇ate-keeps people out of movements. If you need to know a hundred little right things to say or wrong things that will get you canceled before you even have a conversation, that鈥檚 not practical. I鈥檓 not saying we should be disrespectful, but I think there鈥檚 a delicate balance. We need to make accommodations for people and we need to always listen to feedback. But I think we also need to not be so worried about saying the right things all the time.

How do you feel about cancel culture?

I feel exhausted when I hear the words 鈥渃ancel culture.鈥� Like any tool, it can be used for good, but it can also be used to cause harm, and I think it鈥檚 causing a lot of harm right now. Cancel culture is a social media guillotine and it doesn鈥檛 allow for actual transformation. In the outdoor space, it鈥檚 often used as a weapon from one marginalized community against another to laterally oppress. It also creates this fear mindset that can keep potential allies and brands from taking their first steps forward. We all need to divest our energy from cancel culture and allow for systems that work on restorative justice.

Social media can feel like an endless series of campaigns or superficial activism. How do you reconcile that with bringing about real change?

We need to demand accountability from brands, but we also need to realize that brands and capitalism aren鈥檛 going to save us. What鈥檚 going to save us is the outdoor community at large. Every single time I have a sponsored content opportunity, I earmark 25 to 100 percent of it for a giveback to a nonprofit. My team keeps track of where everything goes so that we stand by our ethics and so that every sponsored undertaking has a community component to it.

That allows me to support people with no questions asked. To me, brand partnerships are just that, partnerships. It鈥檚 not just a sponsored post, it鈥檚 actual community impact and support. That鈥檚 what I鈥檓 excited to lead brands toward because that鈥檚 what actually has return on investment and value.

Why haven鈥檛 you worked with Patagonia yet?

I鈥檝e been approached and I believe in Patagonia鈥檚 potential, but what they have presented is not a partnership that would create impact. When Patagonia is ready to step into a partnership to increase diversity in the outdoors far beyond the queer community, I鈥檓 ready and I鈥檒l do my best to make it happen. But I鈥檓 just not taking the crumbs鈥攁nd I don鈥檛 mean from a dollar standpoint. I鈥檒l be far more interested in working with Patagonia when I see diversity represented at a C-suite level, but they鈥檙e not there yet.

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In a video posted to her Instagram Story this weekend, New York 14th Congressional District Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez divulged a tidbit about her personal life that has drawn excitement and attention around the outdoor industry in recent days.

The congresswoman is, apparently, an avid backpacker.

In her video, which shows Ocasio-Cortez toting an Osprey backpack on a sunny trail in New York, the congresswoman says that she takes time off and cares for herself by getting into the woods, a hobby she picked up after the storming of the U.S. capitol by rioters in January.

“After the insurrection, I felt like I really needed a practice to help ground me,” Ocasio-Cortez said in the video. “It was getting a lot harder for me to settle my mind in the immediate aftermath.”

She went on to shout out some well-known advocacy groups in the industry鈥攐rganizations that followers submitted as responses to the congresswoman’s posted question, “Favorite women, poc, lgbt+, LNT, conservation, etc camping accounts?”

Tagged with the response “Lots of recs here! Thanks, I’ll check them out and learn more,” Ocasio-Cortez promoted to her followers the groups and individuals Unlikely Hikers, Pattie Gonia, Indigenous Women Who Hike, and Outdoor Afro, among others.

Unlikely Hikers reposted the congresswoman’s Instagram Story to its main feed, commenting, “I鈥檝e got so much gratitude for this shout out in @aoc鈥檚 stories, along with all of my faves, and I鈥檓 thrilled to see her find peace and grounding in nature.”

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Backcountry has launched an innovative new advocate sponsorship program, Breaking Trail, aimed at supporting and welcoming underrepresented communities. The Breaking Trail program is similar in structure to a traditional athlete sponsorship team, with one key exception: It focuses on outdoor leaders who shine not only in their individual sports, but also as advocates driving meaningful conversations and change in the diversity of the outdoor community.

Inspired by Pattie Gonia, the drag persona of outdoor photographer Wyn Wiley, Backcountry’s Breaking Trail program will offer long-term, sustainable support to these outdoor leaders working to make the outdoors more inclusive.聽

鈥淚鈥檓 proud of Backcountry for not just talking the talk but also walking the walk, saying they believe diversity in the outdoors matters and following through with action, allyship, and direct financial support for the advocates as they create community for diverse outdoorists,鈥� said Wiley, who will support Backcountry’s Breaking Trail program both as a photographer and聽an advisor.聽

The program, which launches this month, includes not only sponsorship dollars but monthly features that amplify the advocates and their organizations. Advocates will also lead trainings at Backcountry internally, and at the end of the year, Backcountry plans to fly them all to Park City for a community engagement summit and storytelling event.聽

The program’s class of sponsored athletes will include seven outdoor trailblazers: Jos茅 Gonzal茅z,聽diversity educator, athlete, and founder of Latino Outdoor;聽Ron Griswell,聽advocate, educator, and founder of HBCUs 国产吃瓜黑料;聽Juju Milay,聽athlete and founder of Colour the Trails;聽Eliot Jackson聽MTB athlete, presenter, and co-founder of Grow Cycling Foundation;聽Jaylyn Gough, photographer and founder of Native Women鈥檚 Wilderness;聽Cali Wolf,聽ER nurse and coordinating director of Native Women鈥檚 Wilderness; and Kareemah Batts,聽diversity advocate, cancer survivor, and founder of Adaptive Climb Group.

“This program should serve as a blueprint for companies who wish to approach marginalized communities that they don’t directly belong to,” said Batts. “They let us lead the campaign every step of the way. I had never experienced anything like that before. I have good expectations about this partnership鈥攖his is just the beginning.”

How Backcountry Chose Its Athlete Ambassadors

Colleen O’Neill, senior marketing manager at Backcountry, told OBJ this week that the inaugural class of athlete-ambassadors is the first of many to come.

“This is a long-term commitment that we will be developing for years,” she said. “Our initial thought was to include 12 advocates, but we realized we wouldn鈥檛 be able to tell everyone鈥檚 story in a meaningful way, so we’re starting with seven.”

Backcountry selected the athletes based on several criteria, but two of the most important, O’Neill says, were existing relationships and nonprofit involvement. The company wanted to kick the program off by working with advocates it had supported in the past; it also made sure that each of those advocates was involved with some kind of nonprofit organization, so that Backcountry could support those organizations with the ambassadors’ help.

As for coming classes, O’Neill says the company welcomes input from anyone in the outdoor community as to who should be involved.

“This is a two-way street,” she said. “We’re open to any and all advice for our next advocates. This is a community effort and we’re open to any guidance our community can give us.”

For the makeup of future classes, O’Neill says that including members of the AAPI (Asian American and Pacific Islander) community is “100 percent on Backcountry’s radar.”

“We know that we need to be more inclusive that space,” O’Neill said, “and we鈥檙e excited to expand in that direction.”

Sunn Kim, a digital content producer for Backcountry who worked with Wiley to photograph the inaugural class of athlete-ambassadors, says he felt a sense of deep purpose assisting in the effort to amplify these seven voices.

“When I was growing up, I struggled with my identity in the outdoors as second-generation Korean American,” Kim said. “This [photoshoot] was the first time I was surrounded by people who felt the same kind of restrains I’ve always felt in the outdoors. As a creative, I feels it’s my responsibility to give these people a voice.”

Paul Tew, senior creative director at Backcountry, added that this project is meant to be a conversation, not a marketing campaign.

“This is more than just imagery鈥攖his is a storytelling effort,” Tew said. “We’re going to be doing interviews with every ambassador because we feel it鈥檚 just as important to hear peoples’ voices as it is to see their images. Those interviews will be included in the monthly spotlights for each advocate.”

Backcountry鈥檚 Larger Commitment to Diversity

This new initiative is not the first effort Backcountry has made to improve diversity in outdoor recreation. The company is also one of 175 organizations that have signed the Outdoor CEO Diversity Pledge, founded by Teresa Baker and Chris Perkins in 2019. The Pledge is a commitment to action that moves the outdoor industry toward authentic inclusion.

The spectrum of how companies have interpreted that pledge鈥攁nd how much success they鈥檝e seen in making progress toward their goals鈥攙aries widely. Nonetheless, Baker sees tangible progress in the making.

“I think brands are finally coming around to the understanding that equitable representation in marketing matters,” she said. “What I really like about the campaign is that everyone is wearing their own style. Backcountry didn’t make it a necessity to have everyone styled in their line of clothing.”

Through the Breaking Trail program, Backcountry hopes to become a more inclusive organization while at the same time amplifying the message of its new leaders鈥攕preading the message of inclusivity as widely as possible throughout the industry.

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