By now, you know the story: Having festered in the dark ages for decades, suffocated by its own bro-eyness, skating has, finally, started catching up with the rest of the world, and includes more and more gay, lesbian, and trans skaters. I’m hesitant to call it a sea change, as there’s still plenty to do, but where once only Tim Von Werne and Jarrett Berry stood, we’ve now got Leo Baker, Brian Anderson, Elissa Steamer, Hillary Thompson, and Forrest Kirby, to name just a few of the notables.
Given that every LGBTQ+ person that stands up to be counted inspires countless others to do the same, we thought it was time to take stock and to celebrate that skateboarding has reached something of a tipping point over the last few years in terms of queer visibility. With that in mind, for this issue, we hit up a bunch of different people, from pros to filmers, magazine heads and self-identified skate rats, and asked them to write about their coming out experiences: the good, the bad and the extremely ugly.
The stories that follow are heartwarming, horrifying and fascinating. All of them linked by a universal truth: terrifying as it is, no one ever regrets coming out.
By Patrick Welch
Photo by Josh Stewart
Published in June 2019
Steve Brandi
Steve lives in New York and rides for Hopps, Converse and Theories of Atlantis
I never didn’t think I could come out in skateboarding. I think it was just more when I was ready – and I wasn’t ready for many years. It’s something I had to accept within myself. I knew from a young age, probably from puberty or before puberty, that I was gay. But I didn’t have any gay friends growing up that skated, so that was maybe something that made me feel a little bit like an outcast as well. That potentially played a role in me staying in the closet for as long as I did.
The first person I told was my sister, who I’m very close to. Then I told a close friend of mine that I taught tennis with. As far as the skateboarding world goes, I think Josh Stewart was the first person I told. I told Jahmal Williams. I told Pat Steiner as well, he’s another close friend of mine that I skated with quite a bit in Florida before moving to New York. They were all very supportive. They basically gave me their word that they wouldn’t tell anyone and I could trust them, and that helped quite a bit.
Being around other people that didn’t know got more awkward as time went on, and that’s kind of what made me want to share it with the skateboard world. I didn’t really want to tell two people and have the word spread, and show up somewhere and have me not know that people know. I thought it would be easier to just tell everyone at once through skateboarding. And if someone else who was gay found out that I was gay, it might be able to help them to realize that they’re not just another person that skates that’s gay – there’s more of us out there.
It was never really an issue for me worrying about sponsorships or things like that. I’ve had the support from the people that distribute Hopps, at Theories of Atlantis, and Jahmal, who runs Hopps. That was really rad, to tell these people from the get-go and have their support. But I decided I wanted to tell more people, and tell my friends, and tell the world of skateboarding, because I thought it could potentially help myself, but also anyone else that read my story.
When I saw Forrest Kirby’s coming out post, I was excited. I was happy for him. I knew it was something he probably wanted to do for a long time. He and I had taken a lot of trips together actually, because we both rode for Planet Earth at the same time. We both lived in Miami before I moved to New York and we did a lot of skating together. Obviously, Forrest wasn’t out and I wasn’t out. Was I surprised when he came out? Um, I don’t want to say I was surprised. I was actually just extremely happy for him. I know Forrest and I know a little bit of his history. Some of his actions led me to think that maybe there was a possibility that he was gay, but we never really talked about it. At the end of the day, he came out, he’s happy, and I did as well. That’s really what matters.
When he came out, I already had plans to come out in skateboarding too. Initially, we were going to do an edit. I wanted to skate to a Harvey Milk speech and do it that way. And then we had this project come along for Cons that some of my footage went to, and we had some photos left over, so we did a Thrasher interview. And I just thought, “This is probably a good way for me to get this off my shoulders.” So that’s what happened.
Since then, I’ve had some other skateboarders DM me on Instagram and stuff, and explain their situation, and I thought that was pretty cool. When I was younger, we didn’t have a way to communicate directly with so many people all over the world. It was pretty humbling to see that all of these people had gone through the same thing as well. They would write me and share their story and tell me that they thought what I did was a great thing and they were happy that other people were coming out. I just made sure I took the time to write them back and thank them for the kind words that they sent and their support. It meant a lot to them, but it meant a lot to me as well that someone would take the time to write me and say, “Thanks for coming out.”
“Initially, we were going to do an edit. I wanted to skate to a Harvey Milk speech and do it that way.”
Now it’s done, every day I’m still realising things. I’ve been with my partner for many years and I used to worry when I was out whether I was going to run into someone I knew and would have to explain who this person was and tell them he’s just a friend or whatever; basically lie about who he was. And I didn’t want to lie about it in front of him either. Obviously he understood the situation and was understanding and fortunately, that didn’t happen. Probably because I was somewhat careful. But now I don’t think twice about it. Until, of course, I run into someone and I think how easy it is for me now.
Now things are much more relaxed. My relationships with people are genuine. I don’t have to navigate my way around certain questions about who I’m with. There’s been a weight lifted off my shoulders and it’s been a really positive thing, day to day. Whereas before maybe I didn’t feel 100% myself, now I think I feel more and more myself around people. Like, this is me and if you like it, great, and if you don’t like it, then great too – I might not be for everybody!
There are definitely things after coming out that I appreciate within the gay scene and things that I’ve looked into recently, like volunteering for LGBTQ organisations, which might continue to help me feel more comfortable. Which I do feel now, but I also feel like it’d be nice to give back to the culture at some point. Obviously, that was one of my main goals. The first thing was to liberate myself, but then also if anyone could get something from it, that’s even better. There could be more people in skateboarding that are gay and lesbian who might not feel comfortable about it, and the more we talk about it the more this might just grow to become a subculture within a culture.
IG: @steve_brandi
