Why does it matter, even remotely? Corey Duffel is blonde and dyed his hair for years. Does that matter? Stevie’s gold tooth didn’t grow in like that.
It’s easier now for people to be who they want to be.
Not that I’m particularly bagging you Hugo there. It just seems to be an age old argument whenever this comes up.
I think it’s definitely something that can be discussed, but not in a sense of questioning the validity of it, just because of how it compares to other things.
I literally said it would only ‘matter’ in inverted commas if she competed in a female competition.
Inverted commas because i’m implying it wouldn’t really matter.
I am 100% not accusing you of being transphobic, I know you’re a good egg. Was more speaking to the general sentiment around this from the likes of Slap etc
I think we can all agree that she is rad and her instagram message is spot on.
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No one accused anything, you took that yourself, if you read my post I stated that most people will mention it as it’s a talking point, but with no malice or agenda. This is you and how you mentioned it.
I’m pretty sure everyone here will have a very similar and healthy view on the subject.
The only person who made an accusation was Spanky, saying that it implies it matters to me.
The “should a trans person be in female comps” is a weird one, because skateboarding didn’t even used to have male/female comps, we just had comps! I didn’t see Elissa waiting for the Female comp at Radlands, she’d just shred with everyone else.
The rad part of skating used to be that there weren’t any rules surrounding any of this stuff, gender, disability, it didn’t matter. Skateboarding didn’t need a Kathrine Switzer moment, women that shred were welcomed at any comp.
It’s only these “bigger” more corporate comps that have introduced the differentiation, so Street League for example, would a woman not be allowed in the “Male” category?! Or can we perhaps admit that there are very few women that would ever make it to the finals (The same could be said for loads of rad skaters in fact, with the prelims normally being more interesting, and the finals being the robots…).
The whole thing is just really awkward, it feels like having to differentiate a female comp is almost admitting that the majority of female skaters aren’t at the same level as the select few men, whereas in the past gender/age/disability didn’t matter at all…
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If you didn’t mention it, I wouldn’t have known. She’s good at skating, either way.
Disagree with that bit… I’ve been skating for over 20 years and have been skating ‘female’ comps at various levels, all over the World for at least 18 years. It’s definitely not a new phenomena.
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You know what would be fucking sick which I’ve never thought about until now?
What if the noise/support/positivity/acceptance/whatever you want to call it completely fucks up competitions which seperate gender for good because no one can decide who should be where so they just abandon all together?
Then, everyone can just go back to making dope video parts and shooting rad photos.
Sick.
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I appreciate it’s not a new thing, if there is enough interest to warrant having a female comp then that’s rad, and something I like to see (If I bother watching Street League I’ll watch prelims and female) however it used to be a case of having comps, and then maybe having a female comp too, there wasn’t a “Male” category (although arguably that is every comp for the most part!) I’m interested to hear your views on it in fact.
There are positives and negatives in both cases:
It goes without saying there shouldn’t be any gender bias in prizes for example, and the difference in purses between male and female is shocking at times, but then imagine a field of say 10 women at a comp and 100 men, and both tenth places get the same prize money… It’s then a flipped privilege where a woman will get the same thing for doing a lot less, and thats when men (or Instagram Trolls) throw their toys out the pram.
Having a seperate comps obviously encourages more women to get involved too, as I can only imagine it to be pretty daunting entering a male dominated activity, no matter how welcoming men will claim to be, so getting more women involved is obviously rad.
But on the flip side without having the differentiation of gender, but then having a female perform better than a male could this not be massively empowering for females? Rayssa for example could easily place top ten in most comps. Imagine how dope it would be to have the only genderless sport in the Olympics and having a 12 year old female beating a load of men…
As much as that would be good, I do love a skate competition.
It is fucking stupid though.
Does Leo Baker have to enter the mens now?
Is there a solution? Probably just no competitions as you said.
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Actually maybe they could have have a rating system based on ability rather than gender.
Like handicaps in golf.
That way I could enter a competition and get beaten by a girl. That would be great.
St Albans, Radlands… comps were a massive part of the UK scene BITD
I used to love going to Radlands, no barriers, you’d end up skating with people you looked up to, get a “Yeah” off a pro…
I miss the good comps!
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Instead of just Pro/Am/Male/Female
Have categories based on ability, work your way up.
Cat A, Cat B etc
When you could turn yourself “Pro” by entering a pro comp…
