Drag queen, musician and performance artist Pattie Gonia, seen here, ponders legal action while anti-trans campaign ads are backfiring on Trump. Credit: Instagram
Pattie Gonia, a climate activist and drag queen performance artist based out of Bend, Oregon, was featured recently without consent in an anti-transgender ad put out by former President Trump’s campaign. Gonia is now seeking legal counsel in response.
Addressing the situation on October 3 after being alerted about the footage, Gonia expressed frustration over being used to hurt the community she is a part of and regularly advocates for.
Speaking in an Instagram Reel, Gonia remarked, “Thousands of you are letting me know that I’m in a Trump ad that attacks queer and trans people. Wasn’t exactly on my bingo card this year.” Gonia also indicated that she was in contact with her legal team over the misuse of her imagery: “Yes, we are reviewing our legal options, and yes, I’m going to do what queer people always do, turn our pain into something positive.”
Jenny Dugan, Gonia’s spokesperson, would later also comment on the possibility of legal action moving forward, only saying that, “We are exploring legal options right now and have been advised not to speak further on it at the current time.”
The commercial in question aired over the previous weekend during multiple football game broadcasts and continues to be shown on YouTube. Also included in the short airtime bites were Rachel Levine, the Assistant Secretary for Health, along with other LGBTQ+ administration figures in the Biden-Harris White House. The ad goes on to feature a clip of Gonia with Harris, highlighting Harris’s stance and support for gender-affirming care, taken from an interview in 2020 conducted with the National Center for Transgender Equality. The commercial ends with the narrator stating, “Kamala’s for they/them. President Trump is for you.”
Using the momentum created by the anti-trans ad, Gonia took to social media to further raise support and awareness for gender-affirming healthcare, encouraging any followers to donate to a limited-time fund, vowing to give the proceeds to trans healthcare centers. By that Friday afternoon, October 4, the performer had raised 15k toward the cause, announced in an Instagram story on that day.
In other developments involving Trump’s anti-trans attack program, the ex-president would probably have been best served not to use Gonia’s imagery at all, or much less have started his roll out of anti-transgender attack ads in the first place, according to multiple polls.
On October 23, Pollster Data For Progress put out findings that a majority of voters, 74 percent, say that transgender people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. Of the other findings, a majority of Democrats (61 percent) and Independents (58 percent), with even a growing range of Republicans (41 percent) agreeing the use of political attack ads against transgender people was apt when described as “sad and shameful, mean-spirited, and out of hand.”
Surprisingly, Data For Progress saw 85 percent of Republicans who were polled reply that candidates should back away from transgender messaging, overlapping Democratic (75 percent) and Independent (82 percent) voters who said the same.
Adding to these polls, Ground Media, a website that helps users see the bias sprawling in news sources over the internet, had found that a more recent Trump anti-trans ad had yielded “no statistically significant shift” in voter choice, mobilization or likelihood to vote.
Along with the ads, the policies, respondents to Data For Progress’s polls say, are also something found grievously wrong with the Trump Campaign’s messaging and platform.
In one poll asking about the government’s role in transgender lives, 58 percent believe it should be “less involved in regulating what transgender people are allowed to do, including health care they can receive.” This finding included remarks from 61 percent of Independents and 45 percent of Republicans.