“Sasha can duckdive a nine-six longboard. I’ve never seen a woman in my life duckdive a longboard. Never. That in itself is an advantage.”
Now, before we begin, the usual caveat. The Sydney surfer, Avalon if you wanna be specific, Blaze Angel, hasn’t got a damn thing against any biological man who wants to switcharoo to womanhood.
“I want to make it obvious, very clear, that I have nothing against transgender people in general. I’m a pretty nice person. I’ve got a transgender member of my family.”
Blaze, who is twenty-two, even has “You Do You” tattooed on her upper torso.
But, when it comes to former men competing against the girls, well, having surfed against the celebrated, inspirational and, as her last Instagram post demonstrates, wildly glamourous trans-surfer Sasha Jane Lowerson, Blaze says there’s a few things you should know, and probably haven’t thought about.
Like, paddle speed.
“When I first met Sasha at the Noosa Festival of Surfing, I was quite intimidated, based on her size and stature. I’m five-foot-two…tiny!… and when we surfed against each other there was one situation when we were both paddling back out and we were in a paddle battle to get priority. She just absolutely zoomed past me and I was paddling my little heart out! But she zoomed past so quick and I was, whoa, I can’t compete with that. My little arms won’t go that quick.”
And, duck diving.
“Sasha can duckdive a nine-six longboard. I’ve never seen a woman in my life duckdive a longboard. Never. That in itself is an advantage.”
Blaze says she’s beaten Sasha Jane Lowerson, who won the WA’s men’s state title in 2019 back when she was a he, a couple of times, but, more often, loses to her physically superior counterpart.
“She’s knocked me out of contention for an Australian title twice now which is pretty frustrating. It’s discouraging for a lot of young girls. I’m old enough, I’m an adult, I can handle it. If I was a kid I’d have been so upset losing out on an Australian championship to a biological male.”
Blaze Angel is a rarity for calling, to use a hackneyed expression, a spade a spade. She says she’s had hundreds of positive comments, and a handful of nasty as hell messages, too, in response to her post on TikTok siding with Bethany Hamilton in the trans gals in surfing debate.
I ask her if she believes there’s an undercurrent of opposition to transwomen in surf contests but other girls are too unafraid to give their opinion, publicly.
“I’ve had so many messages, like, thank you for standing up for us, we’re too scared to do that because as soon as you say something you’re labelled transphobic. In particular, a couple of surfer girls reached out to me and said, ‘Hey, we competed against Sasha and lost the WAL state titles and we were really upset and didn’t know what to do and we’re scared to say anything. We have to face the facts, the testosterone levels, even at the WSL-ISA approved levels, are still so much higher than that of females. And that causes unfair advantages.”
So many sides to story!
What?
I think Blaze might be losing because she’s trying to duck-dive a longboard.
get over it Ralph
first problem for Blaze is her name.
obviously mom & pop were “blazing” and got so stoned they saw angels.
second is referring to Sasha as she.
that’s just feeding the psychosis.
Sasha can name itself whatever it wants, but he….is not a she….and never will be.
He got his face done in Argentina but that tuck and roll is T.J. tight baby!….
Lowerson is wierd choice of name. Windina was funny.
Severson probably more fitting, or Severdick. Sasha Le Slasha. Does a spider care if you are anachrophobic?
Even though he is a she, she is still a he. There’s just no way around that. I have nothing at all against trans – could give two fucks. But there’s nothing to argue – he who becomes a she is still a he, and she who becomes a he is still a she. End of story.
Everybody has a right to catch a wave and surf. No matter what you call yourself and/or have done to your body.
But when it comes to competition, I support Blaze.
And Sasha, who competed as a man for many years, can surely continue to compete, as a man, which she is biologically.
That’s all this is about.
It’s not about whether she is allowed to surf. I grew up in HB and nobody is going to stop her from surfing there. It’s a free-for-all. It’s not about whether she can compete. Sasha would have been allowed to compete in the contest. It’s not about whether she ought to be called “she” socially. Whatever dude. Dudette. Whatever.
It’s any whether she can take male strength into a competitive division set aside for females for reasons backed up by science 100%.
I’ve been on coed teams with men and women of all orientations. I have a good friend who is an ex elite Rugby playing lesbian. I’ve hung out with gun toting nudists in the mountains. Cool people. I’m all about “you do you.” I might or might not like someone, but it’s just going to be based on whether they’re an asshole or not.
Competitive sports, specifically, have rules and divisions for good and important reasons. How people feel about themselves, can’t factor into this, in a world with any semblance of sanity.
still wrapping my head around anyone, male or female, duck diving a 9-6
It’s possible. You gotta be a larger human though (which Sasha is, at least when she competed as a man weighing in at nearly 190 lbs)
https://uploads.disquscdn.c… “They told me I had to play on the Men’s rugby team!”
I feel like we could be in for some sort of tonya Harding incident in the near future here
Blaze felt the need to tell everyone she is a “good” person before giving her opinion on the matter.
Yea. So what ? It’s called context. She’s adding context.
The only reason we are discussing big mentally ill men competing against women is people wanting to appear good and nice.
It’s such a welcome change from all the folks being upfront and open about how they’re terrible people.
It’s wonderful that we live in a world where everyone is so brutally honest and has the self-awareness and introspective vigour to accurately diagnose their own character!
Telling socially prescribed lies doesn’t make you a good person. Quite the contrary.
In the last week, I’ve spoken to two people who have friends, of which each have a child, who identify as cats. I’ve heard that in one of their high schools, kitty litter trays have been requested to accommodate. If that shit’s going on when my kid gets to school, his mother and I have agreed to home school. Apparently in Thailand, not sure if it’s a budhist or cultural thing, there are 3 genders. Man, woman and inbetween. At least lady boys there accept they are lady boys. But fuck it must be hard being in a man’s body and truly believing that you are a woman.
I always thought that home schooling would be pretty dreary. For the parents.
Lol the “kids who identify as cats and shit in kitty liters provided on schools” is a modern urban legend, already debunked many times over. The clue is in the twice-removed sources…
Interesting that several cultures around the world recognise a third gender and have forever. Weirds been around for ever.
I belive in some parts of South Eastern Europe, relatively close to Tasmania, its permitted to marry a consenting Three Toed Sloth.
Fuck me. Who chooses the headline pix? Fukn classic!
At what point is this considered harassment?
Looks to have gone the full chop hop
Is Sasha really a wildly glamorous T-girl? Who are we to compare her/him against..
Why, cause of this Sasha dude?
If you want to talk about size being a factor of two longboarders competing against each other then why should Taylor Jenson (6’4 &95kg) be allowed to surf against Taka inoue (5’5 & 56kg)
The difference in mass between athletes already exists – you’re just looking for an excuse to be exclusionary.
They should join the military
Even things up a bit.