This Group is Making the Waves More Welcoming for LGBTQ+ Surfers
queersurf.org) is doing its part to make the sport more diverse and approachable by tailoring surf lessons to the LGBTQ+ community.“Surfing is part of the California dream, right?” Brisebois says. “We’d be out and about in the queer community in San Francisco and folks would ask Kyla, ‘Do you teach surfing?
Would you teach me how to surf?’ We felt like there was an opportunity there.” Brisebois also had personal experience trying to break into the sport. “I was afraid to get a lesson,” she remembers. “Feeling affirmed in my gender or comfortable being myself out in the lineup, whether I’m effeminate or nonbinary, is a big theme.
Those guys giving the lessons, sometimes it’s like ‘OK, girls,’ ‘OK, ladies.’ It’s exhausting. At Queer Surf, there’s none of that.”Queer Surf group lessons — which take place at various beaches along the California coast — begin with a friendly round of introductions followed by a walkthrough of oceanography, various swells and surf forecasts, and a session of on-sand paddling.
Once participants take to the water, there is an unquestionable sense of safety, solidarity, and belonging.It’s what Langen, who grew up in Carlsbad, California, and first surfed on the front of her dad’s board at age 4 before getting serious at 12 and eventually going pro, has always wanted of the sport. “I would get ‘You surf good for a girl,’ so many times,” Langen recalls. “At first, I was flattered.
