“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!