Drag queen and climate activist Pattie Gonia has become the first person to deliver a TED Talk in drag on the organization’s main stage, according to Out.

The almost 10-minute talk, titled “Why joy is a serious way to take action,” featured Pattie in a pink upcycled dress that displayed the words “Climate Change is a Drag” in big sparkly letters. While the talk was filmed in October 2024, it wasn’t released until this week.

Related

Trump showed a drag queen in a hateful ad. She used it to raise $15K for trans people.
“The devil works hard, but Petty Gonia works harder,” the drag performer wrote of her efforts to counter Trump’s hate.

The talk was built on Gonia’s idea that “joy is a strategy to fight back.” Drag, she said, taught her that “you can take fighting for something seriously without taking yourself too seriously.”

Never Miss a Beat

Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today

She said that “drag is an invitation to build new futures through creativity and diversity and joy.”

“Drag took me in the middle of my flop era and showed me how I could envision a new future and then live into it,” she said.

The earth, she said, is similarly going through a flop era, and drag could be its ticket out.

The climate movement could learn a lot from drag, she continued. “People often think that as drag performers, we are hiding who we are, but babe, the one time I can’t hide is when I look like this. Drag doesn’t hide who we are; drag reveals who we are, and drag welcomes our diversity.”

“Our creativity is critical in this climate dilemma… diversity isn’t a hindrance to this work; it’s the key to our best solutions,” she added.

She said there are people in the movement who don’t feel like they can be themselves and are likely holding back their best ideas as a result. She recalled how a famous environmental activist told her to give up the drag stuff and just get to work, but how her refusal to listen has helped her raise over $2 million for climate action.

“I want a climate movement rooted in fertile soil that supports all of our growth,” she explained.

She then spoke about queer history and how drag queens have always been at the forefront of protests and activism.

“When queer people were beaten in their homes, put in jail just for existing, when we had the statistics and the facts on the millions of queer people dying of AIDS — yet no one was joining our fight — drag performers turned pain into joy, and in doing so, welcomed millions more people to fight with us,” she said.

“The problem in the climate movement isn’t just the abundance of carbon; it is the lack of joy,” she said, adding that the facts, doom, and gloom wake people up, but the joy is what will get them out of bed to take more action.

“Joy is strategic because joy inspires momentum, and joy is an inside job,” she said.

So how to actually create joy? Gonia says to get outside and encourage others to fall in love with the outdoors. “Because we fight for what we love,” she said.

She then concluded with a critical reason to love the earth.

“Joy provides an unbelievable opportunity to make the climate movement irresistible,” she said. “Do not underestimate the power of joy. We deserve more than doom and gloom because this is the only planet with a Beyoncé on it.”

Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.