Article by Kylie Becker

Since skateboarding started to hit more mainstream media, the fashion and attitude of skateboarders has been sought after. Much of these attempts to emulate skater style come off corny usually, such as Vogue's Skate week. But like the community efforts in skateboarding, the style of skateboarders has grown by definition and so has the product market.

STYLE AT A GLANCE

Stereotypical skater style has grown since the origins of street skating in the 1970’s. Best depicted in Lords of Dogtown the California beach meets bowl aesthetic set the tone for what skateboarding looked like in media and in the minds of many.

California’s drought in the 1970’s left many pools empty which allowed local skaters to create DIY spots ideal for skateboarding. DIY culture blended into skateboarding through other cultural events happening in parallel such as surfing and punk rock. 

The 90’s gave way to oversized everything – silhouettes, branding, logos and shoes. Some of those styles we've seen mirrored in parodies such as Clueless and basically any stoner representation in media. 90's fashion has dominated every trend since 2010. We've seen so many variations on those trends evolve, but brand's that have come up in the 90's like Supreme and Stussy have absolutely dominated the modern "skater clothing" market. 90's silhouettes are often replicated in modern ways, like ASAP Rocky for Under Armour.

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FOOTWEAR REIGNS SUPREME

As fashion has evolved, so has the cultural conversation. Skateboarding has come a long way from the 1970’s and the cis male presence that once reigned over the sport. Inclusivity has been the topic of conversation since the women's and queer skate scene started exponentially growing in 2015.

Footwear has always been an integral part of the skate industry. As skateboarding has become more and more popular, mainstream brands have added teams to their roster. Adidas, Nike, Converse and New Balance all have gotten into the skate industry’s footwear game. 

Van's has taken a large stake in using their platform to uplift women and queer skateboarders. From the media landscape, they've covered beautiful stories through their Love Letter's series. From the fashion aspect, Vans has released dozens of collections with non-traditional skateboarders such as: Lizzie Armanto, Beatrice Domond, Cher Strauberry, Una Farrar, Fabiana Delfino, and Brighton Zeuner. Van's roster remains to mirror the trends of the industry. Each riders career dips into the varying fashion landscape of skateboarding while broadening the definition of what it means to look like a skateboarder.

In addition to Vans, major brands in the skate space such as Nike SB continue to provide leadership in the cultural conversation of inclusivity during recent times. Their film such as Gizmo or their partnership with Skate Like a Girl are just two ways they've integrated themselves into the non-traditional skate market.

Adidas made leaps in reaching skaters of all gender identities and expressions when releasing their fall 2020 line of gender neutral clothing and shoes in partnership with Unity, a queer-based skateboarding brand that focuses on creative outlets representing the queer community within the skate industry. 

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SHOPPING SMALL

While larger businesses take strides to update their products, smaller businesses have been gaining more popularity for their authentic approach to inclusivity.

Doyenne Skateboards, a women-run skateboarding brand located in Glasgow, Scotland is also pursuing gender nuetrality within the skateboarding and fashion landscape. Their clothing and initiatives promote equality and unity as they design clothes with the intention to suit all genders.  

Marissa Martinez has also taken matters into their own hands, or legs. Marissa is the founder of MamaSkate, clothing brand that makes unisex pants and shorts. On their website, Marissa describes her unisex pants and shorts design as an: eco-friendly limited run unisex pants and shorts with pockets so deep you'll ditch your purse. The skater-designed pants and shorts come in a variety of colors and are made to actually be the perfect fit and fabric for skateboarding. Marissa’s personal experience with fashion and skateboarding has opened new doors to the discussion and design of skater focused clothing within the skate world.

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INDIVIDUAL INFLUENCES

Social media has shifted the focus from brands and branded content, to skaters themselves– changing the way we view skateboarding as well as self expression. There have been some pivotal figures in the skating world that have opened the doors to a whole new era of how we view skate fashion. 

Victoria Taylor, better known on Instagram as Skatemoss shows off her fashion sense on a highlight on her IG page with many outfits ranging in various styles from very “feminine” to “tomboy.” Those outfits include extremely baggy jeans with boxers showing, oversized t-shirts, Nike high-top dunks, and a beanie or SnapBack to tighter, more “traditional” female clothing, such as crop tops, dresses, and boots.

With a four year degree from the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising and a signed model with Next Model Agency, Victoria’s creativity in the fashion world and talents in the skating world have merged into a unique combination of self-expression. Victoria’s authenticity on and off of her skateboard has also landed her a collection with Grizzly which included crop hoodies, joggers, bodysuits, sports bras, crop tees, and griptape.

Victoria represents a lot of individuals in the skate culture. She, like Marissa Martinez, represents many non-traditional skaters, including young girls, young adult women, and the LGBTQ+ community who are not visually represented as frequently in the skate industry. 

Another figurehead in queer self-expression in the skate industry is Kane Caples. Caples, an amateur skater popular on TikTok and Instagram, is the perfect example of skateboarding and fashion simultaneously having no limitations when it comes to gender and gender nonconformity.

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THE FUTURE OF FASHION

Each day gets brighter when major skate brands promote skaters and fashion trends that do not fit “the norm.” Mainstream brands like Vans, Nike, Adidas, New Balance, Thrasher, and Supreme have the stage to support underrepresented skaters and to promote a diversified outlook on skateboarding.

Pivotal brands and individuals as we've mentioned, have the ability to use their platforms to promote the changing landscape. These valuable communities (the queer and women's skate communities) have gradually been breaking down barriers to be more included in all facets of the skating world.

Overall, the views on and passion for skateboarding by these supportive brands and innovative individuals has left a long-lasting message for the skate community; it doesn’t matter the style of clothes that are worn, overall appearances, how someone identifies regarding gender, race, or sexual orientation - skateboarding is universal and it is for everyone. 

As more countries build skateparks and open skate shops ahead of the 2021 Olympics, we're seeing how skateboarding touches all communities differently. While skateboarding is just an activity for some, in other countries it opens up an entirely new way of life. For many girls in India, skating provides freedom from gender and class norms. Vandana K takes us through the experiences of different skaters and how skateboarding has changed their lives.

Article by Vandana K

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Skate culture began to emerge in India only a decade ago. In 2009, British skater Nick Smith built a skatepark in his backyard in the coastal state of Goa in western India but it was soon shut down. He then built the first commercial skatepark for the sports complex Play Arena in the city of Bangalore in 2011. After a glitchy start and a demolished skatepark, Holystoked, a collective and company of skateboarders built a free skatepark in suburban Bangalore in 2014. The skate scene which started off with a handful of people has expanded to include an estimated 5,000 people and seen the construction of over 17 skateparks across India.

Atita Verghese’s, journey began in 2012 at a skatepark in Bangalore. “In the beginning, I knew only two other girls who were skating but the number has grown since and now I can't keep track. A lot of young girls who are skateboarding in India are really good at it,” she said. Atita, now 27, a formerly sponsored skateboarder and surfer runs the Girl Skate India Instagram page to bring awareness to India's skate scene.

Nani Waii Sonam and Mopi Hailey are “skating friends” from the Himalayan state of Arunachal Pradesh located in north-east of India, a region that is characterized by its remote hilly terrain, largely indigenous population, a history of political instability and lack of development. Many youth from the north-east migrate to big cities in ‘mainland’ India for higher education and employment. They often face harassment because of race, gender and cultural differences.

Nani, 24 is from Papu Nalah, a village close to Itanagar, the capital of Arunachal Pradesh. She belongs to the Nyishi tribe. She clearly remembers the day she took her younger brother’s unused skateboard and went to Benjiloma, a local skatepark she had seen on Instagram. 

“Everyone laughed at me because I had such a small skateboard but I was so excited,” she said. In March 2020, India went under lockdown and Nani who runs a small restaurant had plenty of time, so she “skated like hell, everyday from morning to evening - at the park, sports ground, the highway, whatever place I could find.”

Skateboarding opened new doors for Nani. She was featured in a music video in which she cruised down a hill. “I used to have a small circle. I met a lot of people because of skateboarding. Now I have a lot of friends,” she said. The first customer at Nani’s restaurant after the lockdown was a skateboarder.

Mopi considers herself a beginner skateboarder. The 24-year postgraduate student, who is from the Puroik tribe learnt skating from her boyfriend in 2019. “Skating with friends is very cool and I find it stress relieving,” she said. 

Although the number of skateparks in India is on the rise, finding a spot to skate can be a hurdle in a city, with skaters often using public spaces such as public parks, shopping complexes and metro station exteriors as their playground. Mopi recalls “fights with roller skaters” who didn't want to share the space with skateboarders at the public skating rink in Deer Park in Delhi.

Being a woman in India is tough. But being a woman who comes from a Dalit or indigenous community with a rural and impoverished background compounds the number of challenges one faces when taking up an unconventional sport.

When Shraddha Gaikwad used to sit in the back row of the classroom some years ago, she could not predict that she would be skateboarding one day. Born in the Mang community, the 15-year old was raised in the small town of Parli Vaijnath in Maharashtra, a state in western India. 

The Mang are Dalit, a term used for communities at the lowest rung of the archaic and brutal caste system that is still practiced in India. Shraddha recalls how she and other Dalit students in her school were subjected to a modern form of ‘untouchability’ - they could not stand next to children from upper castes, nor were they allowed to sit in the front of the classroom.

Three years ago, Shraddha and her family migrated to the city of Pune in search of a better life. Her father got a job as a security guard at Decathlon, a major sporting goods store. Shraddha would bring him lunch everyday after she finished school and that was when she first saw a young employee of the store skateboarding. 

“It looked like fun and I wanted to try it out but I was too afraid to ask for help. There was a trial skateboard in the store and I began to teach myself how to use it on the basketball court outside the store,” she said.  The employee saw her skating and realized she was good, so he began to give her free lessons. Today Shraddha is a sponsored skater who competes at events. She is one of the growing number of girls and women who are skateboarding in India.

Asha Gond, 21 is a skateboarder and aspiring rap artist from Janwaar, a village in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. She is from the Gond community. The Gonds are Adivasis, a term used by many indigenous and tribal communities to identify themselves in India. The adivasis have been traditionally relegated to the margins of the society like the Dalits. 

Asha dropped out of school in 9th grade because of her family’s financial difficulties. After Rural Changemakers built a skatepark in her village (Janwaar Castle) she began to skate there. She remembers the shaming she faced from people in her village when she began skateboarding as a teenager. People wrote obscene words about her on the walls of the skatepark. “My relatives would discourage my parents from allowing me to skate by saying things like I needed to learn household chores like other girls and stop hanging out with boys,” she said.  

“If I didn’t skate, I’d be married and have had kids by now. Whatever I am today is because of skateboarding.”
- Asha Gond

But Asha persisted and even convinced her parents to send her on a study abroad program in the UK sponsored by Rural Changemakers. “My mother began to trust me more after I went to London. Now she is the one who stands up to people.” Nowadays Asha studies over 6 hours daily online and with the help of tutors so that she can appear for her 10th grade exams. She is also a co-founder and volunteer at The Barefoot Skateboarders, a young non-profit that encourages kids in her village to skateboard and study. “If I didn’t skate, I’d be married and have had kids by now. Whatever I am today is because of skateboarding,” she said.

Asha is not the only one who managed to escape an early marriage. Shraddha’s voice was choked with emotion as she talked about her teenage girlfriends back in her village. “They have been married off by their parents and also have children,” she said. Shraddha also said that many have been sent to work on sugarcane plantations, known for their extremely exploitative work conditions. 

“I want to be very good at skateboarding so that I can tell the people back home that girls can do everything. Don't marry them so early. They have dreams too,” she said. 

Shraddha’s father lost his job in the lockdown and now runs a coconut water cart. Every weekend, he wraps up his cart and takes her to a few spots in the city where spends afternoons skating with her local crew at Pune Skateboarding. It is far easier to buy a skateboard in India than it was a decade ago but access is still a barrier for those who would like to try out the sport. “Skateboards are expensive. I had to use all my pocketmoney to buy my first board,” said Mopi. A skateboard for adults costs anywhere between 5,000 ($68) to 15,000 rupees ($206). 

There are a few Indian skateboard brands but skate clothing and gear tailored for women’s needs remains missing. Atita recalls requesting the father of one of her students to get protective gear for herself from a trip to Singapore. “The need is there. As more girls skate, women-centric skateboarding brands will emerge in India in the future,” she said.

We’ve mentioned this adage time and time again: When you see someone who looks like you, doing something you want to do it gives you that wave of acceptance to go for your goals. Black Girls Skate is more than an Instagram. They’re re-defining representation and access in the skate space. Whether it’s traditional skateboarding or ice skating, their feed is full of inspiration. We sat down with DJ Gooden and Nicole Humphrey to learn more.

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What inspired you both to first start skating?

DJ Gooden: Rocketpower, I loved it when I was younger and I bugged my mom when I was eight to get me a skateboard. A landlord came over one day and came outside and taught me how to ride it like it was nothing. I wanted to be that cool since I saw that.

Nicole: I started cruising about five years ago and was introduced to an ex partner who was excited about it and bought me a skateboard. For the tour we did, I got an actual skateboard and picked up a couple months ago.

Aside from seeing the guy skate, how else did you start progressing? Were you watching videos or going to skateparks?

DJ: Okay so for childhood it was skating around riding for transportation. Recently, I moved to LA and when I lived out there I would get advice from others at the park. I was watching videos and noticing people had different equipment than I had. So then I started to get the right equipment for the skating I wanted to get into for riding bowls.

I wanted to create a place where we could celebrate ourselves

How did Black Girls Skate form?

DJ: Right before I left LA there was a really nice community out in LA who skated– not a lot of people who looked like me but still very friendly and inspirational. When I was looking up what I needed for bowls, I came across Samarria Brevard and was like wow why did it take me so long to stumble upon these professionals. So I started to question, ‘where is the equity in this?’ and I wanted to create a place where we could celebrate ourselves.

I started a social media where I could highlight all these Black and Brown skaters and then earlier I asked Nicole if she wanted to hop on the team. Nicole joined in and it’s snowballed from there.

That’s so awesome. So what are some of the things you guys do with the platform and in person?

DJ: We have Skaters Speak which is a 30 minute conversation where we have skaters to talk about some of the nuances they face in the skate world as well as some of the stuff that they bring to skate to have a positive experience. We also have our care box initiative which is an activation for certain skaters of different levels. It may be a token of appreciation or something they need.

How did the Skaters Speak panel get started? 

Nicole: It started three or four months ago. The idea was to build the audience around the platform we have. We were beginning to organize with our seventeen ambassadors and thought it would be cool to create a dialogue between them and some of the other folks that follow our account. What put the fire to it was getting a Reebok representative to activate a campaign around us all about legacy and we were able to use that platform to provide a budget to get guests on and have a conversation. Once our ambassadors got excited about it, we started to plan how often to do it. 

With the tour, we’re back to once a month but it lives on IG live as a 30 minute conversation series. We want to grow it into its own series in physical form in a panel with skaters all around the world.

Being able to hear from your ambassadors and speak in your own words is such a powerful step that is missing when you’re just reading an Instagram caption or something like that. How do you pick ambassadors? What does that look like?

Nicole: We launched our ambassadors through an open call on our social media platform. We didn’t know initially what we would do but we wanted to add to our service. Our goal was to pick fifteen and we got over fourty applications. We settled on seventeen out of all the applicants. The ideas were content based but when we started to connect monthly, things started to get really heavy around the world. So we just started to have check-ins and see how everyone was doing and feeling. Some folks were skating, some weren’t. Specifically because we didn’t know how safe everything was. We have an ambassador in the UK, France, all around the world. The goal is to have them to continue our programming.

That’s so cool, I can totally empathize with not understanding where to go next in this environment. I think there are a lot of eyes right now on the Black and Brown community of skating so it’s really cool to have so many perspectives through your platform. What kind of things are in your ambassador boxes? How did you create that idea?

Nicole: DJ wanted to do a meetup for our one year anniversary. Of course with the pandemic we thought more about what we could do now since we couldn’t come together. We thought a lot about the virtual events and we started to think about the educational component: How could we send you gear and have an online event where we teach you how to assemble it? Long story short, that was too much to manage and make it fair to distribute. 

The world started to open back up this Summer a little and with that, we felt comfortable to define our own safe social distance practice to distribute these boxes. We didn’t feel like a meetup was safe but we wanted to figure out where to pass these out. Additionally, every supplier was so backed up and it was really difficult to figure out what to offer up. So we thought about PPE and other types of accessories that go with skateboarding. 

We really wanted to focus on a wearable, something to inspire you to skate, a Thrasher magazine “Black Skaters Issue”, a face mask. It was a combination of things but it was an idea to create a continuous care box program. We could ship out these accessories and hardware or equipment.

I think that’s such a great idea. The whole root is accessibility and to your point, it’s more difficult to send it out. I’d love to see how that progresses. Specifically this time it was in a tour setting. What was the inception of that?

Nicole: So basically once we decided that we could have a safe way to give stuff away, we started to arrange pop-up events to create a moment in these cities. We were able to drive and use our ambassador crew in various cities to partner with a shop or community group and then name a skate park to take over for some hours. So quickly in New York for example, we did our event at KCDC and they also donated things and let us use their space. We made it collaborative but we had a goal of 100 boxes to give out.

So aside from NY where did you go?

DJ: Atlanta, New York, Philly, Dayton, Chicago

Obviously you picked them surrounding your ambassadors, was that mainly because you were driving or how did those cities stand out?

DJ: I live in Atlanta and Nicole lives in Chicago so those were easy. Then the other cities we had a big ambassador presence. We also did an event with Proper Gnar in Ohio.

What are some of the things you guys are working on for the future?

Nicole: We’re digging in internally. We were able to reflect from the tour on our strengths and areas of opportunities. For the next 4-6 months we’re going to update our roles and our budgets. We can set ourselves up for annual success. We are in the process of the software and hardware side of development. We want to launch products and merch.

We’re also re-defining our ambassador program to bring new ones on. We want to be able to duplicate our programming all around the world.

That’s so important and the fact you can define that is really powerful. When you build that foundation you can action it and it’ll build from there. The boxes are so unique, especially in the women's space as well.

How can people not necessarily in the skate community get involved or support BGS?

DJ: Comments, likes, shares, reviews are so helpful. Financial contributions and networking help. Reaching into our DM’s are ways to reach out and support us whether you're a skater or not. Our needs, wants and goals are evolving so we’re in the process of defining what that looks like too.

We wanted to share all skate styles, not just skateboarding as well. A skateboarder could pick up rollerblades, you never know what is inspirational to them.

There are so many different accounts that are coming to terms with the fact they’re not diverse. You’re obviously doing this from a place that is not performative but impactful or uplifting. What do you look to post on Instagram?

DJ: I look for anything that amplifies someone or is inspirational. 

Nicole: We wanted to share all skate styles, not just skateboarding as well. A skateboarder could pick up rollerblades, you never know what is inspirational to them.

I really liked that it’s the definition of skate. Obviously our content surrounds skateboarding but the breadth of everything you post is so cool. How does that translate to the boxes you produce?

DJ: That was some of the obstacles we initially ran into with the sizes of wheels because some wheels go towards certain skaters. As we define our program we can better organize which box goes to which skater.

Why do you feel like it’s important that groups or pages like BGS exist?

DJ: For me, I felt a need for a place to amplify and celebrate ourselves and our accomplishments. A lot of times minority groups go unnoticed. I think it’s very important to let our peers and people outside our communities know these things are happening. I want the younger generation to see that and see people who look like them are doing this and they could do it too and even greater. 

We talk to Charlotte Tegen about creativity in skateboarding and the creation of her skate brand, Housewife Skateboards.  Listen to her playlist created for Quell Party on Spotify now. Enter our #THPS giveaway on our instagram to win a copy of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 and 2!

If you like listening to our podcast PLEASE rate us five stars, leave a review, and subscribe wherever you’re listening. Find everything and anything about Quell on quellskate.com or on Instagram @quellskate. As always, thanks for joining the party.

By Natalie Marie Salsbury

Please note: This story contains sensitive topics around addiction and prescription drugs. If that is triggering, please do not continue.

Let’s go back to the spring of 2018. A year from now I will start hormones, change my name and pronouns, and with a decent job begin cycling through another thrift store/discount section wardrobe trying to find clothes to fit my evolving understanding of my gender. But until then I spend most of my time here, at my computer. Too nervous to go outside, I spend most of my free time watching skate videos and videos about gender. At night to help me fall asleep I imagine carving around the bowl in my hometown, which I am about a hundred miles away from with no car. 

Between 2016 and 2018 I had skated maybe a handful of times. I loved the freedom of it: pushing as hard as I could up and down the streets, not thinking about what other people might be thinking about me. In my day-to-day life, I felt like I could feel people staring at me as soon as I walked out the door. There is no hiding when you’re 6’2” and in a dress. I didn’t realize I was doing it at first, but to avoid being around strangers I began to only really leave the house to go to work, the grocery store, or therapy. Skating gave me a reason to go back outside though at the time I didn’t realize this is what I needed most.

I began to seek out other feelings of freedom. Alcohol and its freedom gave me strength against everything I was and everything I was not. And for a while it asked so little in return. When I went to start hormones I lied to the people at Planned Parenthood about how much and how often I drank, scared they wouldn’t let me begin. 

As you may know, Hormone Replacement Therapy, or HRT, for trans femme people is commonly two-part: Spironolactone and estradiol. Spironolactone is a testosterone blocker and if mixed with too much alcohol can cause blood clots and estradiol, basically synthetic estrogen, absorption into the bloodstream can be inhibited by smoking regularly, which I did whenever I was drinking and increasingly when I wasn’t.

I wish these reasons alone made me stop. The much more messy one is I began to hate losing all my money, my weekends, and more than a few weekdays to drinking and being hungover, more than I feared not having any feeling of escape from the life I was living. My  family has a history of alcoholism and always in the back of my mind was that the day may come when I couldn’t stop unless something really bad happened. 

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So without her usual weekend escapades, what is a bored femme to do? I began skating more and more until I became the person I am now who goes to bed early Friday and Saturday night to be the first one at the skatepark the next morning. I’m not sure if I feel like a “skater” but I have fallen in love with skating again.

 I did not pick up a skateboard last year on a whim. I skated from about age sixteen to twenty three (I am twenty six now). During that time, I knew I was a straight cis guy, though I wouldn’t know the word cis until must later. At its peak I had a solid group of other straight cis guys who I skated with almost everyday. More on this later. 

There is an urge in people first coming out as trans to “reinvent” themselves, or rather to emerge as a totally different, hopefully better, person. Skating put a twist on all of this. I could not pretend that I was starting from scratch with skating. When I would go out to push around the neighborhood, I was skating the same board from when I stopped years ago, I could pop up and down curbs with confidence, and if I wanted to watch skate videos I knew where to look, at least I thought. Trouble was, I didn’t want to watch straight guys skate anymore and didn’t know where to find anyone else.

Last year when I started looking for other skaters someone I found early on was Leo Baker. I’m not too ashamed to admit that for a while I emulated Leo’s style of primarily black clothing when I went out skating. Of course, dressing monochromatically is not uncommon in the skate community. Seeing them do it, however, gave me an example of a more androgynous presentation when I was first skating again.  

I read somewhere that to be a cis het white able bodied man is to be invisible in the dominant culture. To be anything else is to be watched, and this watching or even the perceived feeling of being watched impeded one’s autonomy. So the trouble for me comes in when I try to figure out whether I continue to wear more simple outfits to skate in, black pants/hoodie with only slight variations, because I really like this or I because I really like not getting the looks I get when I walk down the street in more femme clothing.

Since starting to skate again I have found many more skaters and the organizations and companies who support them. These came to me through articles, interviews, conversations, and videos in Quell Skate, Unity Skateboards, Skate like a Girl, Skateism, Pushing Boarders, Girls Skate Network and a few others. 

Each name invariably lead to another and then another. To help me remember them all I would try to follow as many as possible on instagram. These were not just any skaters either. I was looking for skaters that were queer, womxn, trans, and every combination and extension of these identities. I was looking for people like me. As you can imagine, this saturated my feed with skateboarding from all around the world and gave me loads to watch. More than that though it became a source of comfort. 

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One of my favorite things to do since a big chunk of Richmond is one big hill, in about 2 miles it drops over 150 feet, is skate all the way down and hit a bunch spots along the way. After some time skating around at the bottom, an area literally called Shockoe Bottom, I would find the nearest bus stop to take me back up the hill. 

It is a well-documented law of the universe that city buses are either pulling away just before you run up or they won’t be there for at least 20 minutes. What I would do, still do, with this time is scroll through instagram and since I had followed all these awesome skateboarding accounts I could see right there in front of me, thousands of miles away, skaters like me. It made me feel in some small way that I was apart of it too, that I was not sitting by myself at some random bus stop but was in a huge community filled with super rad people. 

That sense of connection with the larger womxn’s skate community is something I don’t think was reflected in men’s skating back when I was a teenager. We had a lot of the same social media platforms that exist today, but the skating my friends and I watched was what we would have called “good skating,” i.e. skating at a level that none of us could ever dream to achieve. We all happily signed on to a culture that gave us heroes and legends to watch, but gave us no real way to interact with that culture aside from buying boards and shoes. 

This difference in community and what is considered “good skating” reminds me of something Nora Vasconcello once said in an interview. She said that the only ranking she could ever put on a skater was how much they made her want to go skate. What this means then for me is if I see someone online who is just having fun on a board or pushing themselves to try something new and it got me pumped to go skate then that’s good skating. 

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Earlier this year, in the beginning of summer, I was sitting at the bus stop and saw someone post a clip of them skating every day for 30 days. I thought to myself, why don’t I try that? I was at that point skating only once or twice a week. For the next few weeks though every day when I got home from work instead of opening my laptop or sinking into the couch, I change clothes and had right back out to skate. I began progressing quicker and when I got home I would be thinking about all the tricks I wanted to try when I went back out to the next day. 

The next month after my personal 30-day challenge, and all the months after that, there was hardly a day that goes by that I don’t skate down to Shockoe Bottom, or up to a school/church parking lot, or through all the side-streets and alleys that make up Richmond. 

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While we are on the subject, let’s talk about Richmond. If you think back to your days in high school history, you’ll recall that this fair city was once the capital of the confederacy. Many of our streets, public schools, and even a highway are still named after confederate generals and the confederate president. If you think of this region’s more recent history you may remember that two years ago in Charlottesville (just a hop and a skip out of Richmond) a white-supremacist ran his car into a group of counter-protesters, fatally wounding a woman. As I began writing this piece, an incident in the news struck an unsettling similarity. At the 7-11 down the street from my home, a man tried running down with his car a couple he perceived as queer and thankfully missed, but ended up seriously injuring two other people. 

Despite all of this, Richmond is widely considered in this state to be a haven for queer and trans folx. This is largely because of the people who flock to the university in town with a strong arts program. Something something queer people are always trying to express ourselves something something. A few years ago, I wouldn’t have known the meaning of “chosen family,” but now I couldn’t imagine how my life would have turned out had I not have found a few close friends here to support me when I needed it most. 

I thought of picking up skating again as “taking back my city.” I see now that is a very colonialist way to look at it. If this city belongs, and even this is an improper word, to anyone it would be the indigenous people my wasp-y ancestors took it from and then, particularly here in the American South, enslaved a group of people to build up to their liking. No, what I see now is that picking up a skateboard was more about reclaiming some of my own autonomy. Walking down the street seems less scary when I’ve been down it a hundred times on a skateboard. If I need something I have to suck up the courage and walk into a shop to get it, regardless of how people may feel about me or how I think they may feel about me. And sometimes people surprise me. 

I was visiting my home town in another part of the state and decided to pop in to the local skate shop. It had changed so much since I had last been there. I recognized the owner behind the counter right away, but he gave me a look that said he knew me though couldn’t quite place from where (four years, about a foot more hair, and a wildly different wardrobe will have that effect). I hesitated when he asked for my name. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to “out” myself as trans, or just use the old name he knew me by then quietly sneak back out the door. I took a chance and told him my name was Natalie now and to my relief he was super supportive! Then we just talked about life in Richmond for me and all that he had been doing there in town with the shop. In other words, small talk. 

For me though, after so long of being too nervous to have a real conversation with male skaters, I was bubbling over with excitement while talking to him. I left my hometown because of college; however, I promised myself I would never move back because I did not think it was a place that was friendly to people like me. That brief chat with the shop owner gave me hope for the queer and trans people who still call that town home. 

I mentioned earlier that one of the main reasons I began digging through the internet was to find people like me. I never stopped looking. I know you are out there. I think you are like me, scrolling through instagram at a bus stop in one of the thousands of cities that aren’t Seattle, New York City, or San Francisco. I wanted to write something for you, so that you may feel less alone. 

Skating is rad as fuck, but this is about something more: you need to go outside. This cis-normative society wants you to stay inside, wants you to feel like you always have to hide. Just because no one is currently pointing a gun at your head does not mean we are free. I know I am only speaking for those of us in the US, those of us in “progressive” cities, those of us who are white (the list goes on); outside of this small minority of us where weapons can be just metaphors. I do think skating can help us; it can be a shield, it can be an escape, it can be fun.

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