MEET THE FEARLESS TRANS PRO SURFER

Sasha Jane Lowerson is a world-class athlete, winning multiple longboarding titles. Since her 2020 transition, she's helped make surfing more inclusive, even while some in the sport are resistant to change

- MILES KLEE

Watching Sasha Jane Lowerson paddle out into the chilly Pacific, it becomes hard to tell her apart from the couple of dozen other surfers waiting for their moment.

Lowerson is patient, and it's a good while before she comes cruising in on a southerly, slow-rolling wave the kind that takes you all the way in. At this moment, none of her pro titles really matter, nor do the culture-war dramas of being the first out transgender surfer on the competition circuit. The ride is everything.

Until last week, Lowerson had spent months out of the ocean as she recovered from gender-affirming surgeries. Surfing hasn't felt the same since she came to recognize her true identity.

"It's easier," she says with a smile. "I don't have this fake front up." It's a bright, breezy March afternoon at Surfers Point Cafe in Ventura, California.

Lowerson is speaking candidly of past struggles and how she almost quit surfing when she began to transition in 2020. (She ended up contacting Surfing Australia, the country's governing body for the sport, and worked with it to implement a new policy for trans inclusion that allowed her to compete in the women's division.) Yet her mood matches the sunny calm of this beach town.