Transgender women competing in women’s sport has been a big talking point in MMA, weightlifting and swimming the last couple years, and now the controversial topic has come to include surfing.
Transgender surfer Sasha Jane Lowerson won the 2022 West Coast Suspensions Longboard & Logger State Championships in Australia last Sunday with a ‘staggering point lead’ over female competitors. She took first place in both the Open Women’s Longboard and Open Women’s Logger.
I have no idea how professional surf point scoring works, but according to Surfing Western Australia, Lowerson won by 4 points over second place in the Longboard division, and by 2.5 points in the Logger division. For comparison, the biological women who finished below Lowerson trailed behind each other by 1 point, and in one case, three points.
Speaking with the publication, Lowerson said:
“To be the first transgender woman competing in surfing hasn’t been an easy ride emotionally but the amount of support I’ve been showed has been phenomenal and I’m so grateful to be involved, welcomed and embraced within the longboard community in Australia.”
That’s nice, but the question remains – does Lowerson possess an unfair advantage due to her biological sex? She was actually an excellent surfer when previously competing as male Ryan Egan – winning the male division the WA longboard titles in 2019.
Surfing Western Australia described Lowerson’s victory last Sunday as “one-sided” and “absolutely destroying the women’s division”. I don’t know if they’re suggesting an unfair advantage there or just describing how dominant she was – but naturally people on social media are freaking out and using this as another example of women’s sport being corrupted.
As always the issue with discussing this topic is that most people are not experts, and even doctors and sports scientists seem to disagree with each other. The conversation needs to be about the practical realities of bodies that were male at birth Vs bodies that were female at birth, and it’s too bad that taking either side comes with accusations of “hating” trans people or “hating” women. Can’t we just make XX and XY categories and be done with it? Would that make everyone happy? Probably not.
Just recently, Caitlyn Jenner came under fire for (surprisingly?) having ‘the balls to stand up for women & girls in sport’.
