Ever since I can remember, I dreamed of being able to skate. As a little girl, I asked Santa Claus for a skateboard, but when I went to my local skatepark in a small Belgian town, the skaters were far from welcoming. They made it clear that skateboarding was not for girls. With no other suitable place nearby to practice, I put my dream away. As an adult, I kept dreaming, but I assumed it was too late to start. After all, isn't that something you learn as a child?

The first time she stepped on a skateboard, it was the summer after Year 3. The same summer she finally found the words for something she'd been feeling for a long time: that she wasn't the boy she had lived as for eight years. That she was, and always had been, a girl.

By the time she found skateboarding, she had already come out. Which meant that at the skatepark, there was no past version of her to explain. No awkward conversations. No "I used to be…" or "I'm actually…"

She just got to be Logan. A girl on a board.

And that matters more than I think people realise.

Skill level does not matter. How fast you make progress does not matter. None of it matters. Make your own definition of a skater, show up, be confident. The rest of us are cheering you on, every step of the way.

I teach surfskating, especially to women and girls, because I wish I had had someone who made me feel seen, heard, respected and accepted in all my fears.

For me, skating feels like flying while still touching the ground. It is a feeling of being completely alive.

Gentle Sowle's love for skating started with a movie and a Houston skatepark that became her second home. Now she's building that same feeling for the next generation through HTX Skateboarding Academy, teaching confidence one drop-in at a time and making sure no kid ever feels like they don't belong.

Becoming a skateboarder felt a bit like making a new best friend. The peeling stickers, the wax residue on the rails, the whispers of freedom as my wheels slid across the concrete: every session uncovered a new layer of what it means to belong to this sport.

I didn't become The Creature Feature. I stopped editing myself long enough for her to show up. This isn't a story about reclaiming youth. It's about what happens when you've already done everything you were supposed to do, and decide to choose more instead of less.

At GRLSWIRL's fourth annual Surfskate Fest, skaters fall, get back up, and get cheered on regardless. It's a celebration of surfskating culture that cares more about community than trophies.

"It's all been hard." Fifty years in, George Powell isn't sugarcoating what it took to build Powell Peralta from a one-man garage operation into one of skateboarding's most enduring names.

I just wanted to skate. But from whistles at the park to comments online, I quickly learned gender changes the experience — even when your skills don't.

It's just a week away — the largest skate competition the UK has seen in a while lands at Flo Skatepark, Derby on 31st August. £6,000 cash, £10,000+ in prizes, riders flying in from around the world, and one lucky skater walks away with a year of Escapism shop sponsorship.

Girls have been skating since the very first ollie they just weren't getting the magazine covers. From Patti McGee's 1965 handstand on the cover of Life to Olympic gold at 13 years old, here's the real history of women in skateboarding.

She Skates Kenya has grown from fewer than 10 skaters to a community of over 150 girls and young women across Nairobi, Nakuru, Embu, and Mombasa. In this interview, founders and members share the story behind the movement, from tackling the lack of a public skatepark to building a sisterhood rooted in harambee, mentorship, and Sunday cruises.

Everyone knows the Bones Brigade. Almost nobody knows about Christie, Brenda Devine, Rosie, or the eleven-year all-female team called Hoopla. We asked Powell Peralta co-founder George Powell to finally tell the other half of the brand's fifty-year story.

Adolescence is disorienting; you're lost in a world where everyone else seems to have it figured out. This is the story of how a skate shop, a $20 board, and a Downtown Rochester art contest turned that uncertainty into two lifelong passions: skateboarding and painting.

Three months into skating and still figuring out regular vs. goofy, I've become obsessed with filming the mess — the falls, the face-plants, the laughing fits. Here's my case for why beginners should keep the camera rolling, even when nothing looks "good enough" yet.

Growing up in a deeply religious immigrant family in Laredo, Texas, I learned early on what femininity was "supposed" to look like. Skating taught me something different. This is the story of how a local skate community — and an inside joke between friends — became Esta Sk8 Club, a space where femininity means choosing your own life instead of the one that's expected of you.

Skate crews from Nairobi to Monterrey are gathering on August 2 to wave something white and check in together. Here's what it is, and how your crew joins the wave.

The UK Surf & Skate Expo returns to Newquay from 24th to 26th July 2026, bringing surf and skate culture together under one roof for a weekend of talks, demos, and film screenings. From big wave chargers like Laura Crane and Andrew Cotton to skate voices like Lucy Adams and Leo Sharp, here's who's speaking, what's new this year, and why Newquay is the one town where these two scenes actually grew up together.