'Queer Skateboardg': Photographer documents gay skater culture

Contents:

• OAKS PARK GAY SKATE IS ON A ROLL
• THE SWALLOW, A NEW GAY BAR, OPENS WHE CENTER, AND A BIG-NAME CHEF TO INTERBAY
• WHE CENTER KEEPS GETTG GAYER
• 'QUEER SKATEBOARDG': PHOTOGRAPHER DOCUMENTS GAY SKATER CULTURE
• THERE HAVE BEEN AT LEAST 39 GAY OLYMPIC FIGURE SKATERS. HERE’S THE LIST
• THE 5 BEST MOSW GAY CLUBS & BARSSEE ALL THGS TO DOGAY CLUBS & BARS MOSW
• ICE SKATERS PLAN TO STAND AGAST RSIA'S GAY LAW AT OLYMPICS
• BO MILLER: RSIA'S GAY RIGHTS ISSUE IS 'EMBARRASSG'
• MOSW GAY BARS
• THREE OLYMPIC FIGURE SKATERS E OUT — 2 GAY MEN AND 1 QUEER WOMAN

OAKS PARK GAY SKATE IS ON A ROLL

As the Edorial Director/Co-Owner, Michael Strangeways wr, eds and do about a ln other jobs for Seattle Gay Scene, Puget Sound's most vised LGBTQ news, arts and entertament webse now celebratg s 14th year as a media outlet. The events the Whe Center neighborhood will celebrate the lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr, queer, tersex, asexual, and all sexual and genr mory (LGBTQIA+) people.

It is a Sunday night, and I'm a gay bar Whe Center for the third night a row. We are at the Swallow, a ntil-themed gay bar recently opened by Marc Wilson, the creator and former manager of the popular Capol Hill bar Pony. While rints will tell you that the unrporated Kg County neighborhood, jt south of Wt Seattle and north of Burien, has long been a gay hub, you uld say this Pri is a sort of g out of the closet for the area.

Marg and Loughridge say they created the Pri ft as a way of gettg the neighborhood together, but also to show off many of the new small and gay-owned bs that have popped up Whe Center. The clu the Lumber Yard Bar and the Swallow, the area's first gay bars, but also Dottie's Double Wi, a trailer-themed bar and rtrant, and the Plant Store, a very cute plant shop owned by a nice man named Mil. Directly across the street at the Lumber Yard Bar, a lumberjack-themed gay bar, 's even rowdier.

THE SWALLOW, A NEW GAY BAR, OPENS WHE CENTER, AND A BIG-NAME CHEF TO INTERBAY

Lumber Yard says is Whe Center's first gay bar. While dg at Dnky Two Sho durg Whe Center Pri, I had the unique experience of eatg bone marrow next to a table full of gay pups.

It was at that moment that I felt I'd tly arrived the gay neighborhood of the future. Many gay fai, phed out of Capol Hill and other areas, have been movg south.

WHE CENTER KEEPS GETTG GAYER

And now the gay bars. Another ncern raised about the two new gay bars Whe Center is their malens, nsirg the neighborhood has long had a signifint lbian muny, many of them women of lor. One man said was like a big gay rnn, seeg people he hadn't seen years.

'QUEER SKATEBOARDG': PHOTOGRAPHER DOCUMENTS GAY SKATER CULTURE

Startg January 2022, Oaks Park will host Gay Skate on the first and third Monday of every month. The first time I went to Gay Skate at Oaks Park, I was 19, and on a first date wh a girl om my llege.

It’s been around for so long that now people who started g to Gay Skate as teens n brg their own children to the event. Back when Safar first started spng there, Gay Skate looked a ltle different. Started 1991 as a fundraiser for gay men’s square-dancg group the Rosetown Ramblers, the event almost exclively attracted gay men  s earlit days—no women and fely no LGBTQ youth.

THERE HAVE BEEN AT LEAST 39 GAY OLYMPIC FIGURE SKATERS. HERE’S THE LIST

In her time, she’s seen Gay Skate go om an event that pulled 50 people to one that attracts hundreds. In fact, the event has gotten so popular that, startg January 2022, Oaks Park will start prentg Gay Skate twice a month, every first and third Monday. But Gay Skate offers an alternative, all-ag space to e together.

” Years after she started workg here, MacKay has two dghters who e to Gay Skate nights. The last skate of 2021 was Gay Skate’s 30th anniversary, and the team went all out. The Lumber Yard, a gay bar, opened 2017.

A send gay bar, the Swallow, opened 2019 but closed permanently 2020. “We’re not explicly jt a gay bar, but we wanted to ntue to make an LGBTQ-iendly space, ” owner Amy McCormack says. “I thk a lot of gay people are movg away — farther south, and I thk that is where our opportuny is.

THE 5 BEST MOSW GAY CLUBS & BARSSEE ALL THGS TO DOGAY CLUBS & BARS MOSW

”Smh creds the Lumber Yard Bar, loted across the street, for brgg the gay scene here. The Lumber Yard, billed as Whe Center’s first gay bar, draws as big a crowd as any LGBTQ bars on Capol Hill sce buted last year.

The patg is a bathroom at the Lumber Yard Bar, one of the new gay bars Whe Center. It's found the bottom floor bathroom at Lumber Yard Bar, one of the now MANY (as TWO and, by the end of this year, THREE) gay bars on the 16th Ave strip Whe Center.

Or the Washgton State Liquor and Cannabis Board's ant attack on dicks gay bars? But the patg leads to my send surprisg revelatn: Whe Center is beg a very gay statn.

ICE SKATERS PLAN TO STAND AGAST RSIA'S GAY LAW AT OLYMPICS

After succsfully gentrifyg Capol Hill and turng to a bedroom muny for Amazon el, the gays have set their sights on Whe Center. They were workg the door at The Swallow, a new gay bar opened by noted queer Seattlee Marc Wilson (the -creator and former manager of Pony, who has also performed as drag artist Ursula Android and played the electro-punk group Ononos). It's fun and cisey, both that feels like a gay cise ship and like you uld cise a few guys and get your dick sucked out the alley.

"THIS IS THE NEW CAPITOL HILL" was shouted by many dnk gays throughout the night. ”Self-portra of photographer Ross Lannberger Oak Ridge, LannbergerLannberger adms that as a gay kid skateboardg at his lol skate park a suburban Tennsee, he never felt all that weled by other skateboarrs.

“Once I was a ltle b olr, and knowg I was gay, and people throwg around slurs all the time, jt beg around that, I had no tert beg iends wh the people. It wasn’t until profsnal skateboarr Brian Anrson me out as gay 2016, that Lannberger began to realize there uld be a space for him to be openly gay while also beg embraced wh a sometim homophobic skateboardg culture.

BO MILLER: RSIA'S GAY RIGHTS ISSUE IS 'EMBARRASSG'

"Skateboarr Ryan Schertz, LannbergerSce 2017, Lannberger has been travelg to different ci and documentg the liv of lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr and queer skateboarrs for his photo project tled “Queer Skateboardg. There have been at least 39 gay men to pete figure skatg at the Wter Olympic Gam over the years, wh eight publicly out men petg 2022.

LGBT historian Tony Scupham-Bilton has intified the men over the years, cludg a pastakg procs of intifyg who is gay. The gay men have bed for 15 Olympic medals, wh several ready to pete pairs figure skatg later this week.

MOSW GAY BARS

Five other gay athlet have been named as alternat. In addn to the 37 gay men, Timothy LeDuc is nonbary and will make their Olympic but this week. Six of the gay men to pete have won Olympic gold medals:.

Though he has no plans for overt polil actn, openly gay Amerin skater Johnny Weir says he and his hband's prence at the gam will be a statement self.

For one figure skater, means jt beg himself, flamboyant stum and all, and havg his hband there to cheer him know they may be arrted unr Rsia's vaguely fed ban on so-lled gay "propaganda. They are among the petors and supporters who say the bt place to take a stand agast homophobia is at the Gam jt months to go before the Olympic uldron is l, the qutn of how bt to show support for gay rights has e to the fore. Skjellep, 28, is the only openly gay athlete who is currently nfirmed for participatn Sochi.

THREE OLYMPIC FIGURE SKATERS E OUT — 2 GAY MEN AND 1 QUEER WOMAN

He plans to wear a rabow p, a symbol of the lbian, gay, bisexual, and transgenr (LGBT) muny, to show his support.

Skjellep's stance is supported by Rsia's most proment gay-rights activist, Nikolai Alekseyev, who said he was ready to distribute ps om the first Mosw pri para 2006 to any terted athlet. Rsian Print Vladimir Put signed the ban on so-lled gay "propaganda" June. The law, wily terpreted to be aimed at homosexuals, crimaliz the promotn of "nontradnal sexual relatns" to mors.

Foreign cizens vlatg the law mt also pay the f, face tomatic portatn, and n be jailed for up to 15 activists Rsia and beyond say the law stutnaliz already rampant homophobic attus and ndon vlence agast gays. Nner Nick Symmonds dited his silver medal the 800-meter race to gay 's world champn pole vlter, Yelena Isbayeva, scribed those mov as disrpectful. Dmry Kiselev, the director of the leadg state-n TV channel Rossia 1, said of gays durg a recent program: "Their hearts, se of an tomobile accint, should be buried the ground or burned as unsuable for the ntuatn of life.