Behind the Curl
Surf corporation Rip Curl made a documentary ad featuring the only known trans woman in pro-surfing. Then they took it down.
by Liza Monroy
For years if you weren’t a cis heterosexual male or a cis white skinny blonde woman, you didn't belong in surfing. –Sasha Jane Lowerson
Sasha Jane Lowerson, the only publicly known trans-woman competing in professional surfing, is the first trans-woman to win a female longboarding competition—which also means she has solely borne the brunt of online hatred from trolls who follow the surf world, as well as anti-trans industry figureheads like Bethany Hamilton.
Hamilton, the devout Christian champion surfer famed for losing her arm in a shark attack age 13, has been making anti-trans comments publicly since the World Surf League adopted a policy requiring trans-female athletes to maintain a testosterone level of less than five nmol/L for at least 12 months in order to compete in the women’s division. Most recently, Hamilton and swimmer Riley Gaines embarked on a tour to promote their agenda.
For a brief moment, a possibility of change flickered: international surf corporation Rip Curl, purveyor of wetsuits, apparel, and swimwear, released a documentary ad featuring Lowerson in the 2024 “Summer Looks Good on You” campaign, a long-running Rip Curl Womens series.
Rip Curl also sponsored Hamilton, at the time. “I didn’t want anything to do with a company that supported someone like that,” Lowerson says of when they first approached her. In thinking about it further, though, she reconsidered. The fact that they had approached her could mean “they’re distancing themselves from those attitudes and that stigma, from misinformation and the spread of hate. So I said yes.”
Lowerson has spent over thirty-five years in the industry as a longboarder, including as a sponsored surfer. Longboarding uses a board typically longer than 9 feet where the sport is more about style, flow, and grace and allows for more of a platform for the dance than the fast, highly maneuverable shortboards typically seen in pro-surfing. She’s currently an Ambassador for Athlete Ally, an organization working for LGBTQI+ inclusion in sport, and to end transphobia and homophobia.
In her video, the phenomenal longboarder discusses how surfing has influenced her life and the joy she finds in riding waves. “I believe it’s the only sport where we get to perform on a changing platform, a moving dance floor,” she says. The video, an artful mini-documentary focused on Lowerson’s love of her sport, appeared online on January 24th of this year.
On January 29th, Hamilton tweeted “Male-bodied athletes should not be competing in female sports,” targeting Lowerson.
Then, on January 31st, six days after Lowerson’s ad was posted, Rip Curl pulled the ad, appeasing the anti-trans side. They released this statement soon after their decision:
“Our recent post has landed us in the divisive space around transgender participation in competitive sport. We want to promote surfing for everyone in a respectful way but … we upset a lot of people with our post and for that, we are sorry … The surfer featured has not replaced anyone on the Rip Curl team and is not a sponsored athlete.”
In the video Lowerson discusses neither gender identity nor professional competition. Her narration is entirely along the lines of, “Every wave is different and I think that’s what’s kept me surfing for 35 years…” insights about why she personally loves to surf.
Surf Equity founder Sabrina Brennan (a cisgender gay woman and longtime advocate for LGBTQ+ surfers), who was at the forefront of the team that fought for equal pay for women’s surfing, a workplace equality issue, responded with a statement of her own:
“Rip Curl, your so-called “apology” post is divisive, anti-trans, and discriminatory,” “The LGBTQIA+ community is appalled. Aligning with bigots harms your brand identity and and fails to support your LGBTQIA+ employees.”
In a subsequent interview Brennan calls the travesty “such a public rejection” after Rip Curl had “gone through great lengths to come out and have their team videotape her and all that. This should have been a show of support and been helpful to her.”
Rip Curl took down Lowerson’s ad to appease transphobic trolls, while telling her it was to preserve ‘her safety.’
The head of the campaign, Lowerson says, “told me, ‘we’re removing the post for your safety, Sasha.’ And I turned around and said to him, ‘that’s bullshit, you’re doing this for brand protection.’ I’m not stupid; my safety’s not a consideration. I’m so disappointed for believing that a major corporation as big as Rip Curl would stick by this sort of campaign with someone of a diverse gender. It was stupid to think they cared. I feel so hurt from that.”
Rip Curl made a decision not to support and stand behind the athlete. Lowerson points out other situations that have included trans-women in previously only cis- woman spaces - the modeling industry in particular, she says, “Victoria’s Secret - they were the first to put trans women on the catwalk. Their response to backlash was after having one trans woman on the catwalk, the next time there were three and the time after that, five. There’s trans women on more catwalks than ever in fashion shows these days.”
The affair left Lowerson with unanswered questions. Why didn’t the surf industry respond more like the modeling industry? Why didn’t Rip Curl double down, start featuring more trans-surfers?
“I have not had a financial sponsor in so many years,” Lowerson says.
Brennan of Surf Equity is concerned that the trend towards “prohibiting trans athletes from competition has been growing.” She senses “frustration across all these different sports that at some points things were moving in a more positive direction, and now it's just really awful. There's a lot of anger, frustration, and heartbreak, and people coming together on the question of what to do. Activists and lawyers who work in that space are just running into so many roadblocks. I tried to understand the psychology of why we are in this situation. There's a fear of getting involved in the politics of it because that can result in death, frankly. Pretty severe consequences to activists being public. There are just so many considerations.”
In the aftermath of the ad’s removal, Lowerson traveled to California and connected with surfboard shaper Mando, owner of Mando Surf Co in the Monterey Bay area, who is nonbinary. They’re launching two key collaborations: releasing a Sasha Jane signature model surfboard under the Mando label, and working on the soon-to-be nonprofit, GNDR Surf.
It will be about “all bodies for all waves,” Lowerson says, attributing the phrase to the group Queer Surf. “What’s ahead for me in the near future is getting this nonprofit off the ground with a small group of passionate people. It’s an information-based resource. Being a subject of misinformation from the media myself, I’d like to help make it a resource for getting information directly.”
The collaboration was not started solely in response to Rip Curl’s bigotry, Mando emphasizes. “Sasha is a genius shaper who's been in the industry nearly her whole life.”
Mando reiterates the notion of community and safety, the need to search out community and find support. “I’ve watched this happen time and time again,” they say. “The trans inclusion where you have this moment of hope and then it all falls apart. What we feel on the flip side is really devastating.”
In an industry notorious for sexism and racism, who will be the Victoria’s Secret of the surf world? It remains to be seen. Will a major sponsor come forward to support Lowerson and help repair the damaging message Rip Curl sent?
“This was a chance for Rip Curl to set the standards and show and be leaders,” Lowerson says. “But they couldn’t. They were too spineless and gutless.”
Author’s Note:
This story—without Lowerson’s side of it or input—briefly made headlines in Newsweekand throughout surf media. I wanted to help tell Lowerson’s story and perspective, but was met with rejection and ghosting all around, another instance of mainstream media excluding and silencing trans-voices. It was as if, if it didn’t involve a death or a law, they, too, didn't care, but as Mando says, “the ad was more than just an ad. These are real lives.”
Liza Monroy is a journalist and writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and many more.