“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!

 

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"You can't cherry-pick the rulebook. If you're going to use the rulebook, you use all of it."

Two weeks ago, the founder of American Longboarding Todd Messick got himself a little heat, and plenty of support truth be told, when he said no to inspirational T-Girl Sasha Jane Lowerson competing at the Huntington Beach Longboard Pro.

In a message posted to X, Messick said:

“It was brought to my attention yesterday that there’s a transgender athlete that’s entered into the women’s division and it threw me completely off guard. I didn’t realize I was going to have to address this just this soon, only into our second contest. But I do want to make clear that our policy is very much in line with the ISA. You’re welcome to go online, I’m going to post some things there, but right now we’re going to support biological males and biological females in their divisions respectively. If you were born a female, you enter in the women’s. If you’re born a male, you enter in the men’s.

“You guys can live however and whatever you want to do in life. That’s not for me to decide, but it is for me to decide what’s fair and not fair for the American Longboarding Association. So, that being said, we’re going to stick to our guns. 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.”

“It’s really this simple,” said the skateboarder Taylor Silverman, who ain’t into T-Girls in women’s sports. “Contest organizers just say no. Within one day of being made aware of this nonsense it was announced it would not be tolerated. This is the way. This is the future. This is the return to normalcy and sanity.”

Now, Messick’s dream of only allowing biological gals to compete against each other has evaporated after The California Coastal Commission ruled surf competitions could “not discriminate based on gender”.

“I was really disappointed and surprised [by the decision not to allow T-Girls into the contest”,” Sasha Jane Lowerson, a robust forty-seven-year-old strawberry blonde with terrific arms who blossomed into chemical-induced womanhood in 2020, told the BBC. “You can’t cherry-pick the rulebook. If you’re going to use the rulebook, you use all of it.”

One year ago, the World Surf League opened the door for transgender women to compete at the highest level despite Kelly Slater arguing for a “trans-only division.”

A few caveats.

You had to’ve been a gal for at least twelve months and your male hormone levels gotta be real low ie less than 5 nanomoles per liter continuously for the previous 12 months (biological men hover between 10 and 35, bio-gals under three), although the WSL said it wasn’t testing, instead relying on each athlete to supply their own supporting documents.

Messick says he was “surprised by the anger” following his post but also, “What I found too is that there was a lot of people very appreciative of me speaking up. For me, I was trying to do the right thing. It wasn’t something I ever expected to have to deal with really, not in our little longboard community.”