Blowing it.
Longboarding, as they say, is so hot right now. In Western Australia,
the most inspirational story has just unfolded with surfing’s first ever competitive transexual competitor, Sasha Jane Lowerson, absolutely demolishing the women’s division to hoist the cup high above her tousled strawberry blonde head. And in eastern Australia, the World Surf League’s longboard tour is set to officially kick off with the Great Wall Motors Sydney Surf Pro at Manly Beach.
Oh but you certainly wouldn’t know it as the aforementioned World Surf League is absolutely smothering the feel-good story of the year with its utter incompetence. Thankfully sitting longboard champion, currently suspended, Joel Tudor is around to shine his light on the excitement while, at the same time, questioning the WSL itself.
Tudor took to Instagram and wrote:
First event for longboard tour starts in few days / as per usual the ding dongs @wsl haven’t given any advertisements or posts regarding it! Good luck to all the men & women competing! Bet ya 20$ it goes back to high pro wanking as style of choice now that @devon_howard has resigned! Here’s the great Gary Propper showing how it’s done!
The “dong dongs” really are blowing it. The drum of equality has been beaten, hard, in Santa Monica for years now but apparently “equality” has its limits. Apparently it doesn’t include surfboards longer than six feet two inches nor edifying stories of transexual surfers beating all odds and wildly thrashing a pack of women.
Tudor’s question about how this year’s tour will be judged, anyhow, is very interesting in light of Devon Howard’s resignation. Will “high pro wanking” be rewarded or will traditional grace and style win the day?
Also, how fantastic would a final between Lowerson and Tudor be? Guaranteed mainstream coverage, that’s for certain.
Blowing it.
Utterly blowing it.
LGBTQ+ community jubilant as world’s first competitive trans surfer destroys opposition to win one-sided women’s longboard contest; becomes first surfer in history to win men’s and women’s divisions!
"To be the first trans woman competing in surfing hasn't been an easy ride emotionally but the amount of support I've been showed has been phenomenal."
Surfing’s first competitive transsexual surfer Sasha Jane Lowerson has continued her dream run through the women’s division of the Western Australian longboard titles, winning the open gal’s crown easily.
In the final, Lowerson, a forty-three-year-old strawberry blonde who has ridden “stupidly big Waimea” and who won the male division of the WA longboard titles in 2019 as Ryan Egan (whom Lowerson talks about in the podcast below) before transitioning, combo-ed one surfer, the other three gals needed nine-pluses to win.
The triumph was a sweet return for Lowerson who says she was close to killing herself a few months back, even had a few swings at it.
Depressed as hell, Lowerson gave up surfing, shaping, but once she decided to transition and the female hormones kicked in, woke up one day in February, felt a little better, called up Surfing Australia and said,
“Umm, this is me, the last time I competed in your Australian titles I was third, what are you going to do? I was pretty frank about it. We can do this two ways. We can do it together and make it amazing or we can do it terribly and it’s a circus and you guys are the only ones who are going to come out looking silly… I’d prefer to not go through that.”
Head judge Glen Elliot was super cool, says Lowerson, and told her he’d “love to see you still competing.”
Lowerson says, “To be the first trans woman competing in surfing hasn’t been an easy ride emotionally but the amount of support I’ve been showed has been phenomenal and I’m so grateful to be involved, welcomed and embraced within the longboard community in Australia.”
Inspirational.