Transgender campaigner who led fight against Rip Curl’s ghosting of surfer Sasha Jane Lowerson wins $10,000 in new court case

Trans-gal banned for not looking "sufficiently female" wins stunning victory!

The brave transgender campaigner Roxy Tickle, she with the curly black hair and smoky blue of eye, has won ten thousand Australian dollars in a landmark case that hopes to spring open previously shut doors to T-Girls all over the country. 

Roxy Tickle, who is fifty-four and blossomed into womanhood in 2017, sharing the journey with her myriad followers, was removed from an app called Giggle for Girls, an online safe space for women to interact with each other “because she did not look sufficiently female” according to Justice Robert Bromwich, who ruled in her favour.

Tickle sued for two-hundred gees and won ten.  She hoped the victory was “healing for trans and gender diverse people.

“Mostly I get to just live my life and be who I am. But a small group of people have taken it upon themselves to declare that I am not who I know I am and they have set about making my life miserable.

“This case and the unlawful and discriminatory exclusion from the Giggle app has stolen the last three years of my life. I have been targeted by hateful online commentary and degrading merchandise designed to ridicule and mock me.

‘The ruling shows that all women are protected from discrimination. I brought my case to show trans people that you can be brave, and you can stand up for yourself. I know that I can now get on with the rest of my life and have a coffee down the road with my friends, play hockey with my team and put this horribleness behind me.”

Back in February, after Rip Curl celebrated trans-surfer Sasha Jane Lowerson in a post only to delete it when they got a little pushback from transphobic bigots, Tickle used her platform to shame the company as “cowards”. 

In another post, Tickle used a picture of trans German songstress Kim Petras to prove the point that sex is as fluid as the juices that sluice from our sex works.

“Apparently some people are referring to Kim Petras as a man. Shoulda gone to Specsavers.”

A very good point!

 

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Waterman of the Year Nathan Florence conquers a Brazilian slab that rears 17 storeys high and lands in “three feet of water”

“Whoever started surfing this wave is out of their mind”

The newly minted Waterman of the Year, Hawaii-born and maddeningly cool Nathan Florence, has brought his YouTube viewers along to Brazil for a POV ride of one of the heaviest waves in the world. 

The joint is called Shock Slab, which is a translation of the Portuguese Laje do Shock, and it is found just west of Rio.

It is a wave, of sorts, that rears, sometimes seventeen stories high, and attempts to squeeze the rider’s brain out of his ears. Riders talk of feeling the sides of their skulls collapse, then expand, and where there had been respondent brain was now a purple putty. The Shock Slab  was first ridden by bodyboarders using the power of arms and flippers thought it was later colonised, as these places usually are, by surfers harnessing the horsepower of jetskis.

The video begins with Nathan Florence accepting his Waterman of the Year after a short, but excellent, speech by his wife Mahina Florence, who is the daughter of world champion jiujitsu black belt and former strong-arm of Andy and Bruce Irons, Mr Kai Garcia aka The Kaiborg. The award’s prestige is unimpeachable, previous winners including WSL owners Dirk and Natasha Ziff.

Nathan Florence also visits the California headquarters of Florence (formerly Florence Marine X) in Newport Beach. Staff people are very happy to see the face behind the brand.

Surfing begins at nine minutes although Mahina’s speech a few mins in is worth the slender splice of time it takes to listen.

Essential.

 

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Gabriel Medina (left) and Griffin Colapinto (right) heartbroken and irrelevant. Photo: Instagram
Gabriel Medina (left) and Griffin Colapinto (right) heartbroken and irrelevant. Photo: Instagram

Surf world in mourning after Griffin Colapinto and Gabriel Medina fail to make betting odds as Jennifer Lopez’s next beau

Two most eligible bachelors left out in the cold.

We surfers, we dancers upon the ocean, used to be considered the sexy ideal. Skin bronzed by sun, brined by salt, shoulder and pectoralis major toned from stroking through the seas, devil-may-care attitudes honed from years of throwing caution to the wind. Desirable specimens.

But not anymore.

Though you have certainly followed the rise, fall, re-rise and re-fall the romance between the multi-hyphenate superstar Jennifer Lopez and the actor-director Ben Affleck. Their first engagement coming in 2002, ending in 2004. Their subsequent re-kindling, a few years back was followed by two extravagant weddings and much pledges of eternality.

Alas, it is officially over with Lopez applying for divorce days ago. Ben Affleck seen out and about glum, per the usual. But hope over the horizon? Fresh amour bubbling from a heretofore unknown font or maybe even a known one like Alex Rodgriguez?

BetOnline just opened odds on who would win the Grammy-award winner’s hand next. Eminem has the best odds at +800 followed by The Weeknd (+1000), Matt McConaughey (+1600), Drake (+3300), JD Vance (+10000) with Donald J. Trump and P. Diddy bringing up the rear (+25000).

Missing entirely, any surfer.

While John John Florence, Jack Robinson and Filipe Toledo are all attached, world number 2 Griffin Colapinto and the current most interesting surfer in teh world Gabriel Medina are not. In times past, both would have made the list with decent odds too, seeing as surfer meat used to be irresistible.

These days, though, it doesn’t even make the joke section.

Sigh.

Should we open our own bookmaking operation, here, and set odds on surfers, and their various proclivities, in the wild?

Something to think about.

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Jensen Kirby (pictured) looking 49. Photo: Jensen Kirby
Jensen Kirby (pictured) looking 49. Photo: Jensen Kirby

Dream Indo surf trip devolves into nightmare after boat explodes

"I was in the middle of this fire. I just remember hearing the big whooshing sound going past me."

The Indonesian surf trip is a coming-of-age adventure for any surfer worth her salt. Flying to the world’s largest archipelago, charting a boat to some far flung coast and living a tube-enhanced dream. No phone, no boss, no responsibility other than getting drained and draining Bintang.

A good life, maybe perfect, until the dang mechanic proceeds to hook up the battery wrong thus engulfing the entire business, including surfers, in an inferno.

But let us 19-year-old Jensen Kirby on his very first solo trip overseas. The young Perthian is lucky to be alive after a harrowing accident left him well done. Here he is, without further ado, with the play-by-play.

“The mechanic was putting the battery on and plugging it up. He plugged the negative to the positive, so it was wrong, and as soon as it clicked it just sparked and ignited the petrol fumes in the boat,” the dishwater blonde told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. “All I saw was the spark and the next moment I just saw the flames around me and I was like ‘Oh my god, what the hell do I do?’ I was in the middle of this fire. I just remember hearing the big whooshing sound going past me. It was crazy, like out of a movie. I just turned around and jumped straight into the water because I was so scared and got away as far as I could in case there was another explosion.”

Young Kirby survived, body very burned, and had multiple stages to get to a proper care facility. He was worried about looking at his face, scared the damage would be lots. When he finally mustered the courage, he felt he looked “thirty years older” which would make him 49. Exactly six years younger than surf great Kelly Slater.

If you looked in the mirror, after a scary accident, and saw Kelly Slater staring back how would that make you feel?

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Brittany Penaroza and the world's worst drop-in
Filmer Rory Pringle Pringle dubbed it the Britt Flip and said it was “the most controversial manoeuvre of the summer.” | Photo: @brittroza/Facebook

Surfer girl defiant after being attacked online for “world’s worst drop-in”

"Most dudes I know would love to be dropped in on by her"

A short clip of the Hawaiian-raised surfer Brittany Hokulani Penaroza dropping in and then wiping out atop a surfer at Desert Point has split the internet, a few celebrating the manoeuvre as female empowerment at work, the majority calling it dumb and dangerous.

Posted by the master filmer Riordan Pringle, the talented boy who shoots and cuts all of those Mason Ho clips, we see Britt Penaroza joining a fellow surfer on a wave before taking too high a line and being flipped off her surfboard, which almost decapitates the man already on the wave.

Pringle named it”The Britt Flip” and called it “the most controversial manoeuvre of the summer.”

 

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Comments were split, roughly, ten-to-one against Penaroza.

For:

Since when did surfers become so fragile. Hahaha. Brit is fucking amazing for charging deserts, can take a joke and a backflip. People need to party wave more, take themselves less seriously and be less critical.

Most dude I know would love to be dropped in on by her

Most of the male friends around me are chivalrous and confident enough to not be threatened by a chick testing herself on a challenging wave. I think they are also just men who don’t take themselves too seriously and enjoy surfing for surfings sake without the need to fight out in the water or the comment section… especially with women.

Brit is a courteous surfer. I heard this swell was packed and agro. She ended up with stitches and a funny clip. No need to get their knickers in a twist

Against:

Seen her drop in like that on the shoulder at bowls and rocky too many times. Hopefully now she’ll be more mindful. Also, funny to see the blatant double standard from some in the comments.

I don’t give a fuck if I dropped in on that guy and wasn’t supposed to if he did that to me I’d be waiting for them on the beach or the parking lot and he pay a fucking price

And from Penaroza?

“My best move yet.”

Her response to the “haters”, as they’re called in the online community, was simple:

 To all the grumpy people saying ID deserved it, I got 5 stitches in my foot because of this and couldn’t walk for a week

Which garnered a frenzy of replies:

play stupid games you win stupid prizes

Maybe you shouldn’t be dropping in on people…

you did deserve it. Glad you finally got some consequences for your actions. Don’t drop in on people. You aren’t special, and the rules *do* apply to you.

the consequences dont make your actions correct. I hope those stiches help you remember not to do it again. Its easy, just look for other people and pull back if someone is already on the wave. It was YOU who fabricated a dangerous situation, it could have been the other surfer who got injured. And theres no need for that, there are more waves to catch. Even if the guy was snaking and being a dickhead, its better not to create these dangerous situations. It was your foot, but couldve been someones neck

imagine trying to defend a blatant no look drop in and then btching about the outcome

Thoughts?

I come on the side of female empowerment, pro-Britt if you like, and if the surfer being dropped in on was a white male, well, all the better.

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