In Old Joe Biden’s America, you can’t celebrate the great outdoors or do much of anything, really, unless you’re prepared to burn incense to the left’s gods. You may think that your activity has nothing whatsoever to do with the left’s nasty little obsessions over deviance, delusion, and perversity, but think again, peasant: you either play along or you don’t play at all.
That’s how things work in authoritarian regimes, and if you think Old Joe’s regime is not authoritarian and respects the parameters of a free society, you simply haven’t been paying attention. Now even the venerable guide to the great wide world, National Geographic, has fallen into line.
The venerable 136-year-old publication took a fabulous step into the Brave New World when it added a mustachioed drag queen named Wyn Wylie, who prances around in women’s clothes under the name “Pattie Gonia,” to its list of “Travelers of the Year.” This was not the first time National Geographic has paid obeisance to woke sensibilities: as Mark Tapson noted at FrontPage, back in 2017, it put a nine-year-old boy who claimed to be a girl on its cover, for a story celebrating what it called the “Gender Revolution.” Delusion would have been more apt but would have run the old magazine afoul of our new cultural masters.
National Review reported Thursday that Wyn Wylie/Pattie Gonia describes himself as an “intersectional environmentalist, drag queen, and advocate for inclusivity in the outdoors.” He dedicates himself to efforts to “uplift LGBTQIA+ people and other underrepresented groups in the outdoors.” Wylie is so underrepresented that he has over 600,000 social media followers and is celebrated as a hero in National Geographic.
Here yet again we see it: the people who have the real power in society today are those who claim to be marginalized and to be the victims of racism and bigotry. And the people who are really marginalized in society are the people who are supposedly perpetrating the marginalization of those in power.
If LGBTQIA+EIEIO people are “underrepresented groups in the outdoors,” it’s not because some homophobic Bull Connor is holding slavering German shepherds at the ready should a poor little drag queen venture onto a hiking trail. It’s because drag queens and their pals are often more interested in things one generally does indoors (you know, like grooming children). If they’re “underrepresented” outdoors, it’s by their own choice.
Nevertheless, the valiant Pattie Gonia is pushing back against this imaginary marginalization, and being hailed as a hero for doing so by more corporate entities than just National Geographic. Last year, he made a video for North Face’s “Summer of Pride” campaign.
In that video, Wylie, decked out in a rainbow tie-dyed miniskirt with a black North Face belt, swings around in the manner of a hippie-sixties cover girl and happily announces: “Hi, it’s me, Pattie Gonia, a real-life homosexual. We are here to invite you to come out… in nature with us!” Now, what does being homosexual, or heterosexual for that matter, have to do with enjoying nature? I suppose the answer lies in how exactly one enjoys it.
Related: Muslim Families Can Opt Out of School LGBTQ Propaganda — and That’s Bad News for Biden
Wylie is, meanwhile, a doctrinaire leftist who sees his commitment to the outdoors as part of his efforts to advance the left’s entire agenda. He is cofounder of The Outdoorist Oath, a non-profit organization that is dedicated to “action-based commitment for planet, inclusion, and adventure.”
Joining this group involves taking an oath that requires the oath-taker to affirm that “systemic oppression is real and that hatred, discrimination, and biases marginalize people.” The Outdoorist Oath’s “Stretch Sessions” will, says the organization, “challenge your perspective and make you think critically about the role White Supremacy plays into your experience in the outdoors, whether you’re white or BIPOC.”
Oh, come on. “White supremacy,” which exists nowhere but which leftists see everywhere, now interferes with the ability of “people of color” to enjoy nature? Will Whitey stop at nothing? Amidst this nonsense, it is drearily predictable that Outdoorist Oath, according to National Review, recently “issued a statement in support of Palestine and called for a cease-fire.”
That statement claims that “the work we do at Outdoorist Oath would not be needed if it weren’t for the long lasting and ongoing negative effects of colonization and imperialism….We cannot look beyond our borders without the understanding that we are all interconnected. The struggles for the liberation of our planet and its people, are one in the same.” Yeah, and what’s 1,200 murdered Israelis? It’s all for the cause!
You’ll never guess who owns National Geographic. That’s right: Disney.