“It’s juvenile, immature, pathetic behavior.”
The “Women on Waves” contest, a yearly Santa
Cruz area bacchanal nearly two decades old, was the scene of much
acrimony over the weekend after a cisgendered male surf instructor,
Calder Nold, entered, and surfed, in the masters category. Liza
Monroy, author and event finalist, described surfing against him on
Saturday. “He wore the requisite jersey wrapped around his neck and
was bare-chested and in board shorts,” she penned for Lookout Santa Cruz, a
Pulitzer Prize-winning website.
Wanting to get to the bottom of why he was there, she asked.
Nold responded a friend had “nominated him.” After further pushing,
he offered, “This is an inclusive event for charity, right? I just
want to support.”
But maybe more to the story?
Monroy later learned that Nold had entered the contest as a
protest to the inclusion of trans women and at the behest of a
local chiropractor named EmilyAnn Pillari who penned an opinion
editorial wherein “she admits she entered him as a provocation, to
test the rules and make a point that as supportive and appreciative
Nold is of women surfers, he can easily outpaddle even the
strongest surfer. She says that wouldn’t change if he ‘thought he
was a woman.’”
Surf Equity co-founder Sabrina Brennan, who usually trains her
fire on women, momentarily shifted to describe Nold’s “stunt” as
“mean-spirited, disrespectful, unkind, and selfish attempt at
making a point.”
Not finished, she continued, “I don’t care how nice and polite
the cis guy was, he was there to make fun of them. It’s juvenile,
immature, pathetic behavior. To engage in this behavior to be
exclusionary is so targeted.”
The Women on Waves organizers “We’re dealing with two issues.
What EmilyAnn was trying to say about trans women and the women in
the contest who were upset they had to surf with a man.”
Pillari, it must be noted, had lost the previous year to a trans
woman.
Calder Nold also once saved
a dying baby seal.
Monroy, anyhow, interviews the women in the contest as to their
feelings about the matter all while addressing the larger trans
issue, leaning very much toward inclusion and sensitivity.
David Lee Scales and I, as chance would have it, also discussed
other overlooked trans issues during our now twice weekly get
togethers. Helpful for potential sticky conversations at upcoming
Thanksgiving Day feasts.
My gift to you.
