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History, it is said, is written by the victors. And so it is that the male-dominated history of skateboarding has been written by men, is about men, and celebrates men, with a few delightful women popping up hither and yon.

This story is about skateboarders who identify as anything but men. Which isn鈥檛 to say that men who skateboard are bad. Many are good. Super, even. Fantastic! But it鈥檚 time to tell some different stories. To set some records straight. To recognize and historicize the female, queer, bi, and nonbinary humans responsible for today鈥檚 more equitable skate culture.

Nothing exists in a vacuum; societies and political constructs are reflections of their respective eras. It鈥檚 what calls the 鈥渋mmense entanglement of everything鈥濃�攖he idea that everything affects everything affects everything else. Even rebel things like skateboarding have long reflected, and been a reflection of, the world around them: In the 鈥�70s it personified the punk-rock, lock-up-your-daughters, middle-finger-to-the-Man ethos.

In the 鈥�80s it was fingerless gloves, parachute pants, neon graphics, and synthetic beats. In the 鈥�90s it channeled New York City鈥攇raffiti, hip-hop, and a high-low street style personified by the Supreme shop on Lafayette, where hip-hop and incense wafted out the open doors onto the sidewalk, erasing the division between public and private space.

And in all those decades, skateboarding mirrored/reflected not only pop culture, but the sexist, homophobic framework surrounding it. Women were excluded entirely or welcomed to get paid mind-numbingly less for skating the same contests as men, just as women in corporate America got paid less than their male peers and were barred from the C-suite.

Rarely did you see a woman鈥檚 name in a skate video鈥攅ither on a deck or behind the lens鈥攖he same way a woman鈥檚 name rarely graced the top line of a Hollywood film under the title 鈥減roducer鈥� or 鈥渄irector.鈥� And there were no gay skaters. At least, no out gay skaters. Like the rest of the world, skateboarding considered anyone who wasn鈥檛 straight an aberration.

Sometime within the past decade, though, skateboarding stopped moving in lockstep with the world around it and started resembling the dissenters it had long professed to rep, rejecting the stupid status quo to include whoever, and dress however, they wanted. It鈥檚 these genuine outcasts who are at the heart of this story, their collective story anchored by the personal experiences of four skaters, each with a vastly different relationship to skate culture:

fell in love with skateboarding at the age of 8, a precocious phenom breaking records and taking names, until their talent threatened to destroy their life. 

grew up skating in a tiny town in Iowa. She liked how she didn鈥檛 have to pretend to be someone else when she skated. She had zero designs on fame. When it happened, she was more surprised than you.

was raised to look hot, nab a husband, have kids, and live happily ever after. At the age of 21, she stepped onto a skateboard and found a more inspired happily ever after. That is, until, as in all fairy tales, the wolves showed up at her door.

And then there鈥檚 , a real-life rebel teen heroine with a lapful of gold medallions, getting into catfights, crying in secret; misunderstood. All she wanted to do, forever, was skate with her friends. She鈥檇 like it if her sponsors liked her, but in 2003, no one in the skate industry knew what to do with a rebel girl. If you鈥檙e one today, you owe Vanessa a thank-you card.

But for all their differences, every one of these skaters fell in love with the same thing: a piece of wood with four wheels, two trucks, some kingpins, nuts, and bolts. They all loved that thing so badly that even when it didn鈥檛 love them back they kept returning to it. And that鈥檚 how they broke the mold. By refusing to slot neatly into a nebulous collection of preordained boxes, and instead, fighting for their space in the world鈥攚hich, contrary to popular belief, there鈥檚 enough of to go around.

The first rule of fight club is you do not talk about fight club.

When I started writing about this topic in the summer of 2020, I didn鈥檛 know the club existed. And then my niece skateboarded down to meet me at the surf break. The world was in lockdown, and everything was the worst. But that day, after teaching her to turtle roll against the cold, crashy waves, she showed me how to tic tac across the pebble-pocketed road, and everything was the best(ish). 

We鈥檇 never bonded over anything before and suddenly were inseparable, pushing each other to try things that scared us on boards. Things that left us breathless and bruised, smiling bigger than ever.

I said, Let鈥檚 have a sleepover!

The night she showed up at my place we decided to only watch movies that featured girls surfing and girls skating.

Skateboarding has recently weathered a number of significant changes. Most controversial was the one-time fringe subculture being catapulted onto the world stage as a result of being in the Olympics. In response, a new era of skateboarding sprung up鈥攐ne too young to know its past, much less the parts that have seldom been told.

So before things go any further and the history of skateboarding is forever cemented in myopia, here are some stories that tell a different tale. And sometimes the same tale, from a different perspective, with the same rapturous fervor.

鈥淥ften, if you want to write about women in history, you have to distort history to do it, or substitute fantasy for facts,鈥� said historical novelist Hilary Mantel. This story is meant to avoid future historians having to make shit up.

This excerpt, adapted from by Deborah Stoll (Dey Street Books, 2024), appears by permission of the publisher.

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