L.D. Lapinski on the growing queerness of skate culture
L.D. Lapinski is back and they are here to chat their skateboard graphic novel with Logan Hanning, Kickflip.
L.D. Lapinski last chatted with us about their Strangeworlds Travel Agency series, which we absolutely adore the world of. They are now back, but this time with a new adventure — a graphic novel series with Logan Hanning. The series starts with Kickflip, which follows two skaters’ journey to seek their identity and find their community. To celebrate the release, we invited L.D. Lapinski to chat about why skate culture is associated with the LGBTQ+ community.
Guest post written by L.D. Lapinski, co-author of Kickflip along with Logan Hanning.
Skateboarding has always been punk. Even before punk was a named, labelled and recognised subculture of its own, teenagers and young adults were starting to ride boards of wood with wheels bolted on in the 1950s, and with that: skateboarding was born. As surfers, frustrated by the lack of waves, turning to skateboarding, the sport came with a ready-made community that has grown and developed and become more mainstream every year since.
Skateboarding is now regarded as an extreme sport, with strict rules and guidelines surrounding competitions, and has even taken a place as a featured sport at the Olympic Games. So how punk can skateboarding still be, with such a mainstream recognition? And who benefits from rules like segregating the sport into two genders?
In 2021, the Olympic Games in Tokyo showcased skateboarding as a gender-split sport, and one of the athletes competing was Alana Smith – a non-binary skater who was competing in the women’s category. I remember watching them, with a colourful they / them written on their board, skating amazingly. I remember listening as the commentary consistently mis-gendered them during their performance. Skateboarding is such a male-dominated sport, and to see an athlete clearly so comfortable in their own skin being mis-gendered on worldwide broadcast was downright depressing. But the joy Smith had in skating, the big grin on their face, the satisfaction they had when speaking to the cameras after their turn to perform… that outweighed all of the concerns and upset I had about the commentary and the sport. It was the moment that I began to see skateboarding as a thing of potential, as a sport that was welcoming and had the potential to be incredibly inclusive.
Since those Olympic Games, there has been an uptick in the number of queer-centric skateboarding clubs and societies, on social media and in real life. If skateboarding is essentially punk, and punk is the anti-establishment, then in the world of 2025 – where transphobia is government policy and trans kids are being denied the medical care they need – there is nothing more punk than skateboarding whilst queer.
But what if you were skating whilst queer and didn’t feel you could talk about it? Not everyone has the confidence and flair of Alana Smith, and not all skateboarding clubs are openly queer-friendly. Unlike other sports governed by the same body, such as Roller Derby, there is not a broad association of queer culture within skateboarding. But that does not mean it is not there, and growing. But how do you find your people, particularly if you don’t know for certain how you might label your own identity? As a non-binary person, writing about identity is core to all the art I create, and it is a topic I am keen to bring to the forefront – for young people who now have the opportunity to see themselves in books, where I did not.
Back in 2022 I started writing JAMIE, a book about a non-binary kid who has to choose between two senior schools – one for boys and one for girls, whilst they are neither. The story was incredibly cathartic to write, but had a real focus on positivity – the idea that young people can change the world (this is still true, btw), and that young people are more than capable of knowing who they are and being comfortable in their own identity. But out of this came a question – how does the world work when you’re not sure of your own identity, and life constantly feels like a performance?
Enter: Elliot Powell. A teenager who loves K-Pop, their best friend Jess, playing netball and avoiding their school bully. But something doesn’t sit right with Elliot. Everyone at school thinks they are a girl, and although Elliot doesn’t gel with that label, they aren’t sure what the alternative might be. One night, walking home, they stumble on the local skateboarding club, and are invited to join by Ryan – who thinks they are a boy. Whilst Elliot is happy not to be perceived as a girl for once, being labelled a boy doesn’t feel right either. Elliot begins a sort of triple-life where they are seen as someone they’re not at school, and at the skate park. It’s only at home, with a very understanding mum, that they begin to unpick what it really means to be themselves.
The world is always split when you’re a non-binary person – everything from socks to toilets to soap is split into men’s or women’s, and you are constantly having to assess the world for which option might be the safest. For Elliot, this means pretending to be someone they’re not, more than once. Skateboarding works well for one side of this as, traditionally, it is a very masculine sport. Likewise netball, in Elliot’s school life, is often only played by girls on school teams. But it is through the combination of all these aspects of their life that they are able to find a label that works for them, and to use their newfound confidence to take their skating to the next level.
Skateboarding has always been about making your own space; trying things your way, and making your own mistakes. It would be foolish to say that every skateboarding group or setting is entirely queer-friendly and open-hearted, but as long as skateboarding remains punk, and punk remains a subculture of going against the grain and welcoming change, there will be space for those who do not fit in, who are discovering their own identity, and celebrating themselves in a sport that was born out of rebellion.
