Skateboarders love to brag about their sport being defined by endless diversity. This might be true for tricks and the diverse ways we bust the balls of scooter kids, but it’s still uncommon to roll with LGBTQ folks. Skateboarders are not necessarily more progressive than any other social group, which means that the stereotypes, prejudices, and sometimes outright contempt for non-conforming individuals easily carry over from the larger population to the microcosm that is skateboarding. This barrier can prevent LGBTQ would-be skaters from even considering entering skateboarding. It's likely to at least discourage LGBTQ skateboarders from making friends in the skate community. Which sucks. Maybe it’s not as bad as professional soccer, where coming out can nuke your entire career. But just doing better than the absolute worst is not really a cause for applause. That said, as a culture, skateboarding has come a long way since the 90s. As we tend to glorify the skateboarding of yesteryear like a bunch of boring geezers talking about the good ol’ days, it’s easy to ignore that skateboarding was a sport for straight dudes. This non-inclusive mindset, however, will not fly in 2021. At Bonkers, we are happy that LGBTQ skateboarders are pushing increasingly harder for visibility and acceptance. Among them, you will find Cher Strauberry: Embarcadero local, skateboarder, and lead singer of the lo-fi punk band Twompsax. Cher, as a transwoman, is well aware of the barriers skateboarding can put up in front of people who don’t conform to normative heterosexuality, and she’s adamant about helping to tear these barriers down, using Vans as a platform. Cher created a pair of Sk8-Hi Decon (Skate) and a pair of Slip-Ons (Skate) in her image, which means lots and lots of cheetah prints — she’s a punk, after all. Of course, two pairs of shoes won't solve inclusion problems by themselves. But as we all know, constant dripping wears away even the most ignorant bullhead. You can buy the Vans skate shoes by Cher Strauberry at our web shop and our store in Frankfurt.
