“Sasha Jane Lowerson just wanted to surf.”
A “battle” is raging in Huntington Beach, California, reports the LA Times after the transgender surfer Sasha Jane Lowerson was, first, banned from surfing in the women’s div of a longboard contest, before the decision was overturned by the California Coastal Commission.
Last month, the founder of American Longboarder Todd Messick got wind that the celebrated transgender surfer Sasha Jane Lowerson, who was one of Australia’s leading male longboarders, even winning the men’s longboard div as Ryan Egan before transitioning four years ago and joining the women’s side of the draw, had entered the HB Longboarding Pro.
Messick didn’t fuck around.
“Right now, we’re going to support biological males and biological females in their divisions respectively,” he said in a video posted online, which quickly earned four thousand likes.
“If you were born a female, you enter in the women’s. If you’re born a male, you enter in the men’s.”
He added, nothing personal to T-Girls but,
“I want to offer an equal playing field for all athletes and that’s the stand we’re taking so I hope that everybody respects that and allows us to just do our thing. This whole thing is about traditional longboard surfing and supporting that so that’s what we’re here to do.”
Anyway, Messick’s dream of bio-gals only in the women’s div was overturned by the California Coastal Commission, with the LA Times’ Hanna Fry writing:
“Sasha Jane Lowerson just wanted to surf.”
And, now, Sasha Jane Lowerson, fresh from facial feminisation surgery in Cordoba, Argentina, has posted a lengthy screed on Instagram calling Messick’s decision “shameful and shady”.
As I walk my journey through the turmoil and the implications of people that want to spread misinformation, I’ve found myself wondering why? Just why to people hate me for existing!
I decided to enter a surfing event here in California that is due to run in a few weeks and unfortunately they have decided to cherry pick the ISA rule book. The organisers made a public announcement saying I wasn’t allowed to participate in the women’s division after I had already payed my entry fee a month earlier and even though Surfing America and ISA rule book states my inclusion in the women’s division is valid!
On March 9 2023 the international surfing Association released a formal and legal statement concerning the ruling of inclusion of people of diverse gender and mainly around transgender women to legally update the rule book. They had formally and legally declared the inclusion of people of diverse gender within surfing at an elite level prior in October 2022.
In this legal article in section 3.1 and .2 its states the requirements for a transgender woman to compete in the women’s division and I have met all those provisions for the last 3 & 1/2 years.
it really saddens me and actually sickens me when an organisation or a so-called league starts up and promotes events under the premise of for the better of the sport stating they will use the ISA rulebook and then they decide to just cherry pick what rules they want and don’t want to use.
It leaves me to believe that they would not stop at anything to let any rules slip or slide or adding anything they want to add in at any point of time if that’s the behaviour that they’re going to demonstrate from the beginning.
It’s pretty shameful and shady really!
