Transgender surfer Sasha Jane Lowerson dominated Sunday at Australia’s 2022 West Coast Suspensions Longboard & Logger State Championships.
Lowerson, previously called Ryan Egan, scored 14.70 points in the Open Women’s Longboard — four points higher than second place competitor Georgia Young’s 10.63 points, Newsweek reported. In the Open Women’s Logger, Lowerson scored two points higher than the second place competitor with 13.97 points, while second place winner Emily Gibbs scored 11.37.
The 43-year-old athlete won the same championship in the men’s competition in 2019, becoming the first person to win the men and women’s competitions, the outlet reported.
“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,” Lowerson said.
Trans competitor Sasha Jane Lowerson was awarded first place in both the Open Women’s Longboard and Open Women’s Logger.https://t.co/HlGUh5KGlg
— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) May 20, 2022
The surfer described the difficulties of growing up as a transgender athlete to The Australian, Newsweek reported. (RELATED: ‘We Need To Speak Up’: UPenn Parents Push Back Against NCAA After Trans Swimmer Crushes Female Competition)
“I’ve been surfing since I was a little boy, I was a good junior surfer, I was surfing against grown men at 14 and winning,” Lowerson said. “I knew at a very young age that I wasn’t a normal boy. For the best part of [my life], I thought [Sasha] could never live, I had to put her in a box. That is something a lot of girls experience.”
“About every two years, I’d want to kill myself and I’ve had a good go at it,” Lowerson reportedly continued. “I had a real wake-up call in [2020] then I thought ‘What are you doing? You are living a lie.'”
Biological men competing in women’s sports has received major backlash, notably after University of Pennsylvania transgender swimmer Lia Thomas won the 500 freestyle event at the NCAA Women’s Championships by 1.75 seconds in March. A female teammate of Thomas spoke out about the advantages Thomas had over the rest of the competitors, claiming the coach allowed Thomas to compete because he “just really likes winning.”
Multiple team members wrote a letter to Ivy League officials in February saying Thomas should not be allowed to compete in the women’s category, given that the biologically male swimmer ranked 462 in the men’s competition and then first in the women’s.
“Biologically, Lia holds an unfair advantage over competition in the women’s category, as evidenced by her rankings that have bounced from #462 as a male to #1 as a female,” the letter said, the Washington Post reported. “If she were to be eligible to compete against us, she could now break Penn, Ivy, and NCAA Women’s Swimming records; feats she could never have done as a male athlete.”