"On this Thursday night, that is distant history. As fog rolls in over the Venice Pier, Sarah skates alongside dozens of women on the coastal path. They belt out the lyrics to "Hey Jude" as singer Chloe Kat serenades them with a guitar in hand. Curious fishermen eye them, their fishing lines cast into the black ocean. But they pay no attention. Twirling under the moonlight, the women resemble a witch's coven - their spells are good vibes, California weather and the boards beneath their feet."
""You get to witness what it's like for people to break all the rules and show up fully as themselves," Lucy Osinski, one of the co-founders of GrlSwirl, says of the group skates. "The weirder, the sillier, the more authentic, the better." Growing up in the world of professional ballet with its restrictive body standards and intense discipline, Osinski found newfound freedom in skateboarding. "I went from feeling so fragile and weak to so powerful," she says."
Venice Beach's skate scene was once male-dominated, with female skaters rare and pitted against each other for limited space. A Venice-based collective founded in 2018 organizes twice-monthly nighttime group skates that attract dozens to over a hundred participants, fostering inclusion and visibility for women and community members. The events emphasize authenticity, playful expression and community bonding, often amplified by social media. Co-founder Lucy Osinski describes skateboarding as liberating after a restrictive ballet background, transforming feelings of fragility into power and belonging. The group reclaims public coastal spaces as welcoming environments for queer, silly, and authentic self-expression.
Read at Los Angeles Times
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