Gay skateboarder
AN INTERVIEW WITH SKATEBOARDING’S GAYEST PHOTOGRAPHER, SAM MCGUIRE
photo: sam mcguire
After years of functional in skateboarding as a photographer, and years of struggling with the proof that he was same-sex attracted, Sam came to his conclusion: it wasn’t achievable for the two worlds to coexist.
Skateboarding has traditionally been close minded in regards to sexual orientation. We still don’t even have an openly same-sex attracted professional skateboarder. Because of this atmosphere, Sam wanted out. His plan was to leave skateboarding at age thirty, come out on Facebook and dwell judgment free in Iceland.
Sam turned thirty last week, and we are joyful to report that he never went through with his plan. Instead, he decided to come out and to share his struggle with the earth. This is Sam’s story.
You’ve worked in skateboarding as a photographer for a while now. When did you decide you wanted to come out?
I went through a phase 2 years ago where it was eating me up. It was hard living the double life, I was matchmaking app someone at the period and switching all these pronouns to cover myself up. I’m not a good liar either. Behind I started to arrive out to a limited people. People I knew wouldn’t car
A BRIEF LOOK AT SKATEBOARDING’S GAY PAST
I’m sure we won’t be the first to tell you that Brian Anderson is gay. Maybe you heard it first as a rumor at your local skateshop, or maybe you initiate out two days ago when BA publically came out on Giovanni Reda’s show on Vice. Either way, he’s out, and words and emojis of support have been coming in from every direction. It’s a big step for the heteronormative skateboarding industry, and the sheer positivity of the responses gives hope that other skaters can come out and be respected, even if they haven’t front blunted Hubba Hideout.
As a crew of a scant straight dudes (who have admittedly marketed ourselves using heteromalefantasies), it’s difficult for us to really imagine the leap of faith it would take to put ourselves out there in the way BA just did. I signify, growing up was hard and awkward enough without having to try and account for feelings we’d been implicitly taught were erroneous or weak or “gay,” so we reached out to someone who might have a small more insight into what it was like to increase up gay in skateboarding. Meet Max…
My name is
'Queer Skateboarding': Photographer documents gay skater culture
Ross Landenberger first got into skateboarding at the age of 12, and can still recall his first experiences with the sport while growing up in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, a municipality about 30 minutes west of Knoxville.
“We only had one skate park in the area, and it was just a azure piece of concrete on the ground,” he recalled. “All that was there was one or two small ramps that kids had built and brought.”
Landenberger admits that as a gay kid skateboarding at his local skate park in a suburban Tennessee, he never felt all that welcomed by other skateboarders.
“It was just a very hyper-masculine environment, especially in smaller southern towns,” he said. “Once I was a little bit older, and knowing I was gay, and people throwing around slurs all the time, just being around that, I had no interest in becoming friends with these people.”
As a result, Landenberger idea of his queerness and his skateboarding as two separate parts of his identity that could never intersect. It wasn’t until professional skateboarder Brian Anderson came out as gay in 2016, that Landenberger began to recognize there could be a spac
Cave Homo skatezine featuring professional skateboarder Brian Anderson
Cave Homo II skatezine featuring professional skateboarder Brian Anderson. Anderson first gained notoriety in the skateboarding world in 1996 with his appearance in the “Welcome to Hell” video put out by his then sponsor, Toy Machine. Three years later he would win the World Cup of Skateboarding and be named Thrasher magazine’s Skater of the Year. Anderson is one of the best street skaters of his generation with his assertive yet graceful manner, he breezes his six-foot three frame through every feasible obstacle with ease. After riding for Toy Machine for a few years, he joined Teen Skateboards in 1999 and skated for them for tiny over a decade. Wanting to state more of his creativity in fashion and board blueprint, he left Lady in 2013, to begin his control company, 3D Skateboards and in that same year collaborated with his sponsor, Nike SB, to produce a signature shoe. Using sketches drawn by Anderson, Nike designers created a skate shoe with a “runner-like upturned toe” that is designed specifically for flip tricks. Due to artistic differences, 3D disbanded in 2016 and Anderson was pi