Tr*nnychasers: A Skateboard Roadtrip (2006)

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  Tr*nnychasers (film)

  smiletomboy Productions

  
  Note: According to the film, "In Skateboarding lingo, 'Tranny' refers to the radial curve between a horizontal and vertical plain." The usage of this term has become controversial in the skating community in the 21st century due to its more common use in mainstream culture as a slur targeting individuals who identify as transgender. In the context of this film, the term "Tranny" is not intended as a slur. Please continue reading for further context.

  Film Description:

  Two queer, androgynous best friends embark on a 5000 mile skateboad road trip across the Western United State in search of concrete bowls and what it means to be a queer skater in a deeply homophobic culture.

  Travis Clough got his first skateboard at age 12 after seeing the movie Gleaming the Cube and becoming obsessed. Growing up a skater in Maine in the early 90's (and the only girl) meant practicing ollies in the living room waiting for the snow to melt, creating your own skate parks out of tall curbs and rickety wooden ramps, and in general, endlessly being tormented by the question: "Are you a boy or a girl". Eventually, Travis moved to Gunninson, CO where he learned to skate bowls, and then Boston, MA, where for the first time in his life, met another skater who was a tomboy, queer and androgynous: Tam Willey. In 2006, Travis relocated to San Fransisco to work on the queer film Maggots & Men. Tam flew to SF to meet Travis and they embarked on their 14 day journey across the Western United States from San Juan Island in Washington to Grand Canyon in Arizona and beyond. Travis recently moved back to Maine and is now a Registered Maine Guide.

  Tam Willey (they, them) is a self employed gender liminal adventurer based in Boston, Massachusetts. Skate culture was the first place they found a home but despite finding a chosen family of punk misfits, Tam never quite truly felt comfortable and able to be themself until meeting Travis at a skatepark and discovering that there were "others" like them and that it was possible to both be a skateboarder and a queer person. Building ramps and finding magic in the shadows of the dominant stories of the tamed world is Tam's bread and butter. Tam has since traded their skateboard in for a surfboard and seeks new ways of connecting as a forest therapy guide.