The Last Taboo: Why Are There So Few Openly Gay Pro Skaters? | Conspiracy or not a big deal?

It’s weird isn’t it, skateboarding is supposed to be such an open lifestyle that most don’t even like it being termed a ‘sport.’ But then there’s often still an underlying current of homophobia amongst much of skateboarding and still not a big name openly gay pro.

Maybe though, it’s just not a big deal anymore. Some people are gay and others aren’t. No biggie.

A few years back, when maybe it did matter more, HUCK MAGAZINE did a little researching into the matter and talked to insiders like Ed Templeton, Patrick O’Dell, Dave Carnie, Bryce Kanights, and more. The heads over on the SLAP boards, many of them anyway, are pretty over the discussion.

 

“Later I talk to Ed Templeton, pro skater, artist and the man behind Toy Machine skateboards, who tells me he knows of Jarrett Berry – another name that constantly comes up on the blogosphere – who featured on the cover of Big Brother’s ‘Gay Issue’ in 2002. He says he knows of plenty top level female pro skaters who are openly gay – something that ex-Big Brother editor Dave Carnie also confirms when he points me towards two big names. “There are others, too, but I’m not at liberty to say. That choice is theirs to make,” adds Templeton.

Bryce Kanights, an ex-pro skater turned photographer says he can think of seven skaters – ams, pros and ex-pros – who are gay, but not out in any formal way. Patrick O’Dell, too, photographer and the brains behind VBS TV’s Epicly Later’d series tells me he can think of six or seven people, pros and ex-pros, who are not out.”

 

One of the worst examples of close-mindedness was brought up by Patrick:

Patrick O’Dell tells me about an incident ten years ago where a skater who was rumoured to be gay left a tour after somebody said, ‘Oh, I heard you were a faggot.’ “It turned into the hugest fight with three skaters being extremely homophobic and the others sticking up for him,” says O’Dell.

 

And they also brought up the Danny Way killing a gay man scandal:

“It reminds me of an incident in 1993 in which pros Danny Way and Josh Swindell were involved in a fight outside a bar in Los Angeles with a man who was allegedly propositioning Swindell. The Los Angeles Times reported that the victim’s face was “beaten beyond recognition”. Way was never convicted of any offence in connection with the incident, but Swindell got fifteen years for second degree murder.”

 

Check out the whole article The Last Taboo: Why Are There So Few Openly Gay Pro Skaters? here.