A couple of days ago Spitfire, a skateboard wheel company, posted a video of Cher Strauberry, an open trans-femme skateboarder. The majority of people were happy to see it and even acknowledged her skills, but there was a small number of people that were straight up harassing her. They would say things like,
“She’s only sponsored cuz’ she’s TRANS!” or using the wrong pronouns and going as far as DMing Cher threats. I wondered what Cher had ever done to deserve this hate. These people don’t know her, yet are so hateful almost as if it were personal that she was representing this male-dominated company. Skateboarding has always been for the PUNKS and FREAKs. You would think that skateboarding would be one of the main subcultures to support and advocate non-conforming people based on the counterculture essence it’s so synonymous with. Recently, inclusivity has spread among new skaters that aren’t the commonly advertised white male thrasher; this means normalizing diverse manners of self-expression which would have major impacts on the security of people as more skaters became more open and accepting.
Skateboarding originated in the late 1950’s in California. While today it is seen as an outlet for punks and rebellious teens, it originated in a time where binary roles were mainstream and anything else was often seen as something “evil”. If you were anything but straight, you would be given therapy. If you were a woman, you were often in a constant “role” of motherhood and marriage that was glamourized in the 1950’s. This might explain why, YEARS later, the skateboarding community has had a steady history of cisgender white males dominate over any other group. Most people will probably imagine a lanky white stoner in big boy pants because that’s how the media portrays this culture, when in fact it’s much more than just a teen phase.
The DIY, punk, and gritty portrayal is all thanks to the Z-boys. The Zephyr Competition Team (Z-boys) were a group of young skaters that were adding a unique “street” style to skateboarding before it was the main trend. They began in the early 70’s and helped shape Mullen’s obsession along with the future of skateboarding. They were notorious for draining people’s pools and skating in them when people weren’t around. They are partially to blame for the whole punk stereotype but there was also an underlying factor, Dogtown. Known as a territory composed of South Santa Monica, Venice, and Ocean Park to the rest of the world, Dogtown was a pretty run down place that helped influence the aggressive and rebellious nature of the skaters.
As Skip Engblom (Zephyr shop co-founder) from Dogtown and Z-boys puts it:
“It was DIRTY, it was FILTHY, it was PARADISE.” The Zephyr team was created by Jeff Ho, Skip Engblom, and Craig Stecyk who were pursuing something different and away from the mainstream. They were first making surfboards that were very much representative of the area they lived in. Inspiration grew from the graffiti by the various local gangs, the slick design of cars at the time (lowriders), and the latino culture which was a heavy presence in Dogtown at the time. This was the main reason that skateboarding continues to have that “skate or die” feel to it. Wentzle Ruml explains,
“Most of us came from broken homes, living with our mothers. Jeff and Skip were like the parents symbol in the equation” After watching this documentary directed by one of the members from the team (Stacy Peralta), I learned much more about how this whole punk attitude originated. The movie revolves around the origin, antics, and progression of skateboarding from its earliest history to the early 2000’s when the film was released. It dives deep into the connection between skate teams and how Thrasher and other famous skateboard magazines got their style. These kids from the 70’s taught the world that skateboarding was more than just a toy like the yoyo, it was a community that housed the outcast troubled youth of a community filled with gangs, graffiti, and danger. This is the reason skaters have that fire that makes them stand back up and slam their bodies to the concrete. Most of them were already dealing with different types of pain, so they were pretty tolerant with any scrapes and bruises that resulted from this activity.
The interviewees that so kindly participated in my project were all skaters of different skill levels. Just like the skaters that Yochim observed for several years, my friends also had identical responses to the people from her book. The first person I interviewed was Juan Cruz, an intermediate skater from Los Altos High School. When I asked him what skating had provided for him, he told me it was an activity that helped him cope with the difficulties of life. Just like any other art form or sport, skateboarding is a great way to provide an outlet for many kids. Just like the Z-boys and the skaters from Yochim’s book, we have a lot more stress than we would like and skateboarding is a fitting alternative that helps us deal with life in our own way. Soon after I asked him why the LGBTQ+ community wasn’t too keen on joining skateboarding and he thought about it for a while before answering. The hestitance was a flag that made him realize that although the skating community is quite progressive with race and age, when it came to gender it still had a while to go. When I asked Juan why this was he replied with:
“Hmm, I would say like a lot of words that we use. Yeah, because a lot of us just throw around words at each other. And I guess that
could like really affect people in a bad way, or think that we’re saying it in a bad way but in reality it’s just, you know, we use the word so much that it like loses the initial punch that it used to give” I found it quite interesting that he mentioned “losing the power” of a word by using it regularly despite the fact that he was a cisgneder male. His defense was a bit awkward. Just like a lot of other skaters, he didn’t truly grasp the unintentional aggression towards the community and said it was people’s “freedom of speech”, or that he didn’t “like censorship”. While I get where he was coming from, I tried to explain that other words could probably be more suitable and still be as joking and vulgar as he wanted. After acknowledging that skaters use a lot more derogatory terms, he sat back and thought about it after we finished up the interview.
Next up was Xiane Prepose, another close friend of Juan, and he seemed just as oblivious to some of the issues regarding safety within the skateboarding culture if you weren’t “the right type of different.” Before we got to the nitty gritty, I asked him similar questions about skateboarding. For him skating was more about the individuality that it provided because,
“...basically like there’s no like there’s no shortcuts to getting good so you have to put in the work. And you could see your progress, like, as you get better and better. And that’s why we like skateboarding.” He enjoys having full control over his skating schedule and progress. The whole “it doesn’t matter as long as you skate” philosophy is somewhat true. Although most people at the skateparks are friendly, we have to remember that we live in a very liberal state and county. While it may be true here, there are other places where it’s not so friendly towards people that express themselves as something other than the skate rat. Xiane also pointed out that the skateboarding mentality of “Skate or die” has come in handy with his academics as well. He tells me that he treats it like a trick. Once he starts he knows he should keep going until he finishes it, like when he attempts new tricks on his board. We talked a little bit about the community but shortly after the same reaction came about when asked about why cis white males dominated this culture. He thought about it for a while and gave a rather interesting response:
“I don’t know, I guess, males just, they’re crazier than females. I’d assume. I mean yeah that’s kind of true like, the more crazy like stuff you see from skate videos on Thrasher, like jumping down like entire buildings and rooftops it’s mainly males but, I mean, I don’t know.”
like to think of themselves as rebels or counter-cultural, but if you step back and look at how the industry and skate spaces function, it’s a microcosm of the rest of our society” (Costas).
Once again, we see that the media’s portrayal of any community can affect future participants in different ways. It can even continue to support the very things it tries to destroy. While Thrasher and other skateboard companies are striving to make a change, they can’t erase the fact that they’ve been covering a mass crowd of white males since their earliest issues. Even within the protection of our liberal attitude towards race and gender, there is still a large amount of people that have a lack of understanding and spread hate, making it harder for people of different backgrounds to start skating. Even in SF, which is a major LGBTQ+ supporting city, there is a lack of representation within the skateboarding community. Despite this Jeffrey Cheung, an artist from the East Bay, created a collective of queer and gender noncomforming folks to ease up the anxiety and harassment that can sometimes be brough on by the harsh environment skateboarding has created. Each skater has a unique story but what they do share in common is their fear and loneliness.
“The industry is set up to make marginalised folks feel unwelcome at best and unsafe at worst. Skateboarding and skateboarders
Adelaide is a professional skateboarder and has clearly experienced many things on their journey. Another skater from the same team, Cher Strauberry, also recalls being “constantly called a girl or a fa**0t. The largest problem that I’ve noticed within the contradictory actions and thoughts of skaters, is the constant terms used that are clearly directed at a specific group. They were so scared that they even had to hire a security guard at a park in West Oakland. If we do not fix these problems, it is more than obvious that this will take a toll on the mental or physical health of many skaters wordwide
HELLO! my name is Charlottw Cuevas. I am a student at both Los Altos high school and Freestyle Academy. I LOVE skateboarding, playing guitar, listening to music, and being the raddest skater grrrl that I can be!
As you can see, I too am an experienced skateboarder shredding skin and wood on an every day basis. Unfortunately sue to COVID-19 I haven’t been able to skate with my friends and my time outside is heavily limited. Despite this I try to pass the time with my other hobbies like guitar. I love shredding to Slipknot, a nu-metal type of beat, and to some indie favorites, like Buttercup by Jack Stauber.
Skateboarding and music have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. My biological father had been a talented mariachi and multi-instrumentalist that learned by ear so maybe that was inherited. No one in my family knew how to skate or play guitar so I had to learn like most people nowadays and youtube LOTS of videos. Throughout my time skating I’ve come across many people of different skill levels and meeting skaters is my favorite thing to do at skateparks! They are all so wonderful and bosst my confidence when it comes to new tricks and being comfortable on my board. While I am certainly no Leticia Bufoni, I do have some tricks up my sleeve (pun VERY much intended) that I practice as often as I can. Skating isn’t something you do once and then never again. You have to keep building on it and if you stop, your skill level WILL drop. Obviously it will be ingrained into your brain, but muscle memory will be lost after too long. This is my favorite part od skating. It has unlimited possibilities, especiaaly when paired with the urban architecture around us in the modern day world. Thank you for sticking around through this lengthy obsessive view on skateboarding! Until next time!