Unity Skateboards’ incredible effort that goes into cultivating and promoting the queer skateboarding community in the USA has become an international phenomena in our little subculture. And the long-awaited spotlight is falling on LGBTQ+ communities increasingly, as more individuals find their voices and discuss the issues which affect them and those alike to them. Tom Kneller, filmmaker, skateboarder and NYC local, is one such creative. His film, Blue Like You, is a short foray into the life of Stephen Ostrowski – an openly gay skateboarder with some serious insight into the culture. But you know us at SKATEISM, we’re always thirsty for more insight. So we had a quick chin-wag with Tom about the passion behind the project.
Hey Tom, we loved the film. Tell us about when you first found skateboarding. How did it fit into your upbringing?
Skating is a path a lot of people choose at one point in their life or another. My experience with this world started when I was younger, actually as I was just starting to discover my sexual identity. I used to skate with my friends in a small town near Tel-Aviv back in the days. Skateboarding is not just sport, it is a way of life – from the clothing to the way you talk – and I quickly found the struggle of being accepted as gay in this community.
What was it that made you feel that way?
I neglected skating, in favour of other places where I could express myself better, surrounded by people I identified with. Discovering my sexual identity increased my need to stay away from skating.
Where in Tel Aviv did you find you could express yourself?
I grew up in Holon (meaning sand in Hebrew), a small town near Tel Aviv. During the 1990s many of my friends came from the Soviet Union and East Africa so I was always surrounded by a colourful mix of cultures. The way to bridge cultural gaps was to find common denominators, like skating, for example. But also any creativity way to express myself and my sexuality. I started to take photos and to build stuff – I called it my art.
You stopped being able to skate?
I gradually began to abandon my friends from the skate world, and stopped skating. I couldn’t pretend that conversations about hook-ups with girls interested me, so I became different and very closed off to the group. I remember that sometimes I heard teasing about gay people, and each time I felt it in my stomach. I didn’t even have any female skaters around me to change the atmosphere.
When did you find yourself able to come back to it?
When I moved to New York City a few years ago I found the urge to skate again, but this time from a slightly different place – more as an observer. I was interested in exploring this issue of sexuality in skateboarding nowadays.
What was it about New York?
In NYC there’s all this discourse, so many different points of view. And Brian Anderson’s coming out stirred this issue up two years ago, and I became interested in exploring this “problem” again personally. To see where I stood on it today. I started hanging out with skaters with similar sexual identities, and opened this conversions between us.
Since BA came out, there’s been a swathe of people doing the same thing – coming out, talking about these issues. What is it about that event that had this domino effect, do you think?
I’ve known people who, for them, coming out attracted the sympathy of people around. Brian came out in a powerful way and it opened the gate for this talk on platforms like social media. It’s natural that people wanted to respond, to express their opinion, to strengthen the importance of the issue through different personal stories. I also think that the timing was key. Now there are alternatives for LGBTQ+ skaters and it’s a great opportunity to talk about them around the world.
So tell us about how you came to make your film?
I knew that I wanted to find out how this subject stood today. But it was also a corrective experience for me. I started to ask some skaters I knew about their experiences with homophobia and their opinions on it. One things led to another and I met eventually Stephan through a mutual friend. We had a lot in common: both around the same age, both grew up in different places from NYC, but had the same experiences with the environment of masculinity around us. Stephen’s story is not my story, but it’s definitely the voice I wanted to give to the film.
He comes across as exceptionally honest in the film.
We had a really candid process. He’s an artist too. We hung out together with his friends in the skateparks and around the city, he in front of the camera and me behind it. I wanted to raise awareness of what it means to be gay in the skate world; it’s still damned in such a masculine-dominated space. Homophobia is absolutely still a thing, and Stephan communicated that so well.
Do you have hope for the near future?
I think there’s some good progress. Skateboarding doesn’t inherently belong to anyone, regardless of who is most represented so…
When you say progress, who do you think of?
I’m mostly talking about our community. I think there’s good progress there, with Unity, for example. They come from the Bay Area of California, but it’s national now. International. It creates and encourages safe spaces for people to skate together regardless of sex, race, gender, identity or ability – people who wants to reclaim skateboarding. There’s a growing group out here, and it’s exciting.
And outside of your community?
In straight society even, there is more awareness and sensitivity to accept others. It does not mean that homophobia does not exist, unfortunately, but the world’s general level of consciousness has risen.
I remember being a kid and thinking skateboarding was for the weirdos, the outcasts and the rebellious types, but it’s strange how exclusive it can be. Do you think a new dawn of skateboarding is coming?
The skate culture has been transformed, partially with capitalism. The skate world is not only about skating now, but about what has been created around it – and it’s not necessarily economically accessible. It’s about being cool. This procedure put us in the mainstream, and people now spend time and money maintaining the image of a skater. What was once truly a niche in our society opened up to a wider audience…
…and they then turned to judge each other? Would you like to create more projects like you have, and get deeper into the issues which really mean something to you?
My work usually deals with gender identity and sexuality, yes. I like to tell stories about people by blurring the lines between the private and the public life. These days I am working on a project following several gays who are serving in the Israeli military – a compulsory term for both boys and girls. Through their experiences with homophobia in that straight, institutional environment, I want to break the image of the masculine soldier in the IDF tradition. And raise awareness for the complex soldier who deals with his sexual identity during his military service. Otherwise, I am looking for more stories all over the world.
That’s rad. Finally, what projects would you like shout out to, or people/skaters you want to support?
I’m talking with a skater who lives in Moscow about the dual complexity of being gay in Russia, which is really interesting to me – also because of my soviet roots. I want to support anyone who feels that he is different and has no mental place to express himself. And always send a shout out to my one and only mom!
