For Gabby Gomes, it was her first ride Kingda Ka that drew her to the hobby of roller coasters. For Sarah Anderson, it was El Toro.
“I was hooked right then and there,” Gomes said, recalling a ride from when she was 10 years old. “I just knew I needed more and more. I was instantly obsessed. I needed to know everything and anything there was about roller coasters.”
“I took my first trip to Six Flags Great Adventure in my first year of middle school with the band,” Anderson said. “After I rode El Toro, though, it was over. I was totally hooked. It’s still my number one, probably always will be.”
There are certainly hundreds, if not thousands of other women who have similar stories to Gomes and Anderson, but for any number of reasons, female coaster enthusiasts are nowhere near as prevalent in the community as their male counterparts. Even for the women who aren’t ashamed to wear their roller coaster fandom on their sleeve, it’s not as inclusive of a niche hobby as it would seem.
“With any hobby that has significantly more men involved than women, I do think the women that are involved with the hobby often stay quiet to avoid any type of harassment,” Anderson said. “Not just sexually, but in general, when a woman is surrounded by men, she gets a lot of unwanted attention.”
Comments on looks – both positive and negative, expression of romantic feelings, and immediate dismissal of coaster knowledge because of someone’s gender are all reasons that Gomes and Anderson feel that women are under-represented in the community, and they are striving to change that dynamic.
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Recently, at Holiday World’s annual coaster enthusiast event, Holiwood Nights, Gomes organized an all-female “takeover” of The Voyage, which was met with negativity from several male coaster enthusiasts.
“The inspiration for the all-girl takeover on Voyage actually came to me last year. I was being sexually harassed by a guy in the enthusiast community,” Gomes recalled. “He had a large following on social media and YouTube, and I saw how many young girls followed him and I didn’t feel comfortable that this was happening to me, an adult, so I couldn’t imagine what more was happening to younger girls who were more vulnerable and didn’t know any better. A lot more people came forward about being sexually harassed, including some underaged girls. After this, seeing the amount of girls that were affected by this one guy’s behavior, my immediate thought was to find a way to unite us all.”
“I wanted to find a way for all of us to come together, even girls who weren’t affected by this specific event. I also wanted a way for girls to connect with one another and just understand that there’s more of us who have each other’s back. I wanted to find a way to support every woman in the community,” she continued. “What better way to do all of this than by doing something we all clearly love; riding a coaster together at one of the biggest enthusiast events of the year? Leah Koch, one of Holiday World’s owners, messaged me in full support of the event. She organized an all-female crew to run the train for us and she was there to operate it as well.”
“I did get a lot of negativity from it, all from men. A lot of guys told me to ‘get over’ what happened last year and that this was excessive and unnecessary. Many guys said they would have supported it had I not brought up what happened last year as well, citing how ‘cancel culture’ is toxic and ‘how much he has changed.’ However, while this person was originally the reason I came up with the idea, it wasn’t about him. It was about the girls coming together, connecting with one another, making a stand against sexual misconduct, supporting one another, and realizing how many of us are here for each other.”
Inspired by more recent sexual misconduct events in the roller coaster fan community, Gomes and Anderson joined forces with Coaster Studios’ Taylor Bybee & Alec Reynolds to create G-Force, an organization whose mission is to support victims of sexual misconduct, raise awareness, provide resources, & connect women in the coaster enthusiast community.
“There are a lot of good people in this community, but unfortunately, the actions of a few can leave a bad taste in everyone’s mouths,” Bybee said. “The most recent instance of sexual misconduct that occurred was a really close friend of both Alec and I, and it hit us pretty close to home. It disgusted both of us, and we immediately started talking about ways we could help. We hated how this seemed to be recurring problem, and felt one of the best things we could do is help girls feel safe and included. We both had met Gabby before, and knew her from leading the Voyage takeover at Holiwood Nights, and so we reached out to her about different ideas on how to make this work.”
“The recent situation was enough for me to know that something had to change,” Reynolds said. “I knew about Gabby’s involvement with the “all-ladies” Voyage Ride at Holiwood Nights and I proposed the idea to her about us creating a unique platform where women and their allies could gather and support each other.”
“We wanted to create a safe space for women to come together, connect, support and empower one another,” Gomes said.
G-Force can be found on Instagram at @g.force.irl and a private Facebook page has been set-up as a meeting point for women in the coaster enthusiast community to come together.
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An artist by trade, Gomes came up with the name G(irl)-Force, and designed a logo and merchandise to support the cause. She then teamed up with Reynolds and Bybee to create a video to announce the new venture. 100% of the merchandise proceeds from G-Force merchandise are being donated to the One Love Foundation, whose mission is to educate young people about healthy and unhealthy relationships, empowering them to identify and avoid abuse and learn how to love better.
“The OneLove foundation is amazing because it really goes into depth with their resources and help,” Gomes said. “OneLove has so many articles on things that women, and I think younger girls, will benefit from. They also have workshops that can be held by anyone that provide signs of unhealthy relationships. These resources are incredibly important and something I wish I had when I was younger so I didn’t fall into an abuser’s trap.”
“I hope by partnering with OneLove and providing the girls of this community with their resources, we can help them realize unhealthy signs in order for them to keep themselves safe.”
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While still a fairly new community, the reception for G-Force has been overwhelmingly positive, according to its four founders.
“Releasing something that is new can always be a scary time, simply because you cannot accurately anticipate how people will respond. Since G-Force gravitates around a sensitive subject, we put special attention into the language we used to deliver our message. At launch, the feedback was almost immediate,” Reynolds said. “There was a huge outpouring of appreciation from the community. It felt nice to know that this was meaningful for so many people. At the same time, this was also a learning moment for all of us. I had a lot of colleagues reach out to me with constructive feedback that I was able to put back into G-Force. I was so grateful that there were others who believed in this and wanted to see it succeed.”
“The Instagram page alone got over 1,000 followers in less than 24 hours- and that was absolutely insane to us!” Bybee continued. “We were overwhelmed with responses and private messages- so many people just thanking us for taking the time to set this all up. That was really heart warming. We also got a lot of constructive criticism and advice for things that we can do better- and we love that! Our goal is to make this the best it possibly can be- we don’t want this to be something that just dies after a couple days or weeks. We hope G-Force sticks around for a long time, and all the feedback we’ve received has been really helpful and opened our eyes to ways to continue to make the page better!”
With the outpouring of support, it’s an easy question to ask about how others can be an ally for G-Force and female coaster enthusiasts, rather than making them feel threatened and excluded in the community. It’s easier than you might think.
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“Bringing awareness means starting a dialogue, even if it’s uncomfortable at times,” Anderson said. “Tons of people recently had to face the reality that one of their close friends and colleagues is a sexual predator—in no way is that easy situation to navigate, but it has to happen. We have to hold people accountable for their behavior even if they are our friends/family/or peers—the more we do that, the less I see people being willing to risk their reputations and futures to fulfill their sexual urges. Get angry. Speak up and out against sexual harassment. Remove offenders from your body of work. Do anything you can to show everyone watching that this behavior is intolerable and unacceptable.”
“Love and support the victims in any way they see fit,” she continued. “This part is crucial. If we want to prevent future instances like this, we have to work towards a world where victims feel comfortable coming forward with their experiences. If we look for flaws in their stories, if we pressure them to respond in a particular way by involving their parents or the police when they aren’t ready, less victims will come forward and this problem will perseverate. We are stronger and better than our abusers will ever be, and that alone can be enough to incite serious change.”
“Call out people who are showing predatory behavior,” added Gomes. “I know a lot of guys try to downplay that kind of behavior but it’s never okay, if a woman says she’s uncomfortable that’s enough. Share resources whenever possible, something like a hotline being shared onto a timeline can save someone who happened to see it. It’s important to make a stand against these types of behaviors, especially those with a platform so younger girls and guys can see. Teach younger guys too. Teach them how to treat and respect women. That’s incredibly important as well!”
“I feel like what we have introduced with G-Force is our solution for these reoccurring problems,” Reynolds concluded. “The larger G-Force becomes, our ubiquitous message of zero-tolerance of inappropriate behavior dynamically works itself throughout the community. The merchandise line will allow allies to wear this message with pride when they are at parks, further reinforcing women’s voices and G-Force’s mission.”
As G-Force continues to grow, Gomes is hopeful that there will be more stories like her first ride on Kingda Ka.
“There’s been an overwhelming amount of support and I’m extremely happy people are supportive,” Gomes said. “As long as we can help even just one girl in this community in any way possible, I will be extremely happy and proud.”
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