Author: Natalie Porter
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Michelle Matta
Michelle Matta (Overin) of Canoga Park near Los Angeles had a flurry of activity in November 1977 when she appeared in both Skateboard World as well as a 6-page feature in Wild World of Skateboarding magazine at age 14. Michelle was a graceful Californian freestyle skater, riding for Maxwell and Pepsi, and while there’s emphasis…
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SkateGirl
Following in the footsteps of Tara Cooper, who produced one of the earliest documentaries on women in skateboarding, a 30-minute film called Live and Let Ride (1999) and AKA: Girl Skater (2002) featuring the Gallaz team on a tour of Australia, Susanne Tabata stepped up with one beast of a documentary. In 2006, Tabata directed…
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G.B. Jones
G.B. Jones is an artist who collaborated on the queer punk zine called J.D.’s (AKA Juvenile Delinquents / James Dean / J.D. Salinger / Just Desserts diner / Jack Daniels / Joy Division) with Bruce LaBruce and The New Lavender Panthers out of Toronto, Canada from 1985-1991. In the zine, they cultivated the queercore movement…
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Equal Time Mystery Skaters
In the late 1980s, with the skateboarding industry promoting itself as a domain for men and boys, assuming that there was no point in marketing to girls and women, the zine Equal Time (1989 – 1992) by Lynn Kramer and then JoAnn Gillespie, was especially important. The zines were filled with letters, stories, drawings, rants,…
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Laura Thornhill-Caswell
An archive on the history of women skaters wouldn’t be complete without Laura Thornhill (Caswell) with her massive list of contest wins. Her legacy is very much tied to the 1970s, and the photos of her taken by the legendary photographer Warren Bolster are iconic, among many others. When I tell people I’m writing about…
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Bristol Girls Team
When the first UK National Championships was hosted at Crystal Palace in London (originally planned for July but delayed until August 10th, 1977 due to rain) there was no category for women and the female skaters from Bristol were not impressed. In the Evening News special report that was printed in September 1977 it was…
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Diane (Veerman) Desiderio
Diane (Veerman) Desiderio was a competitive freestyle skateboarder who was among very few female professionals in the 1980s. She embraced the era with big hair, big earrings, and work-out gear as a whole look, and would often perform in tandem with her husband, Primo. In July of 1983, the NSA Paramount contest results in Los…
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Colorado 1970s Slalom
From 1975-1978, there was a thriving skateboarding scene in Colorado primarily focused on slalom racing in the Rocky Mountains, and it included a crew of women. These skateboarders were celebrated in the August 1978 issue of The National Skateboard Review, with a photo of Barb Hellberg, Janice “Berger” Rumberger, Kathy Ruh, Lisa Wilson, Cindy Langhill…
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Kym Agresti
Kym Agresti from Santa Cruz was a skateboarder, artist, photographer, and zine writer. In her artist’s bio she wrote that, “1984 was a great year to be 18 years old. The skateboarding world was exploding and I was there right in its midst. One Friday my high school arts teacher let me rent a 35…
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Jana Payne
Jana Payne (Booker) has been repeatedly recognized as a major influence on skaters like Vicki Vickers, Kym Milburn, and Terry Lawrence and has now been inducted into the Skateboard Hall of Fame (2022). Jana is also a survivor of childhood sexual assault which she experienced at the hands of a predatory skateboarding coach in the…
Womxn Skateboard History 