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academia and surfing

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angle

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Bermuda

Talented but hard-luck regularfooter from Dee Why, New South Wales; winner of the 1968 and 1970 Australian National Titles. Trim was born (1953) in Sydney, raised in Dee Why, and began surfing at age 11 on a board given to her by her longtime-bodysurfer father, George. Jack Trim, George’s brother, was among the original Dee Why boardriders, recognizable by his all-white sharkskin bathing suit.

Trim herself took to the sport immediately and soon made friends with some of the most progressive surfers of the age, including Midget Farrelly and Bob McTavish. One early surfing pal recalls giving Trim a ride to the beaches north of Dee Why around this time. “We’d paddle out into a small crowd and Judy would just tear the crap out of her first wave and everyone would be amazed. We would pretty much take over the peak after that.” Surf historian Murray Walding, who also watched Trim surf in her prime, called her "stylish, extremely capable, and more of a hassler in the water than most of her female contemporaries. [Judy] showed none of the awkwardness handling large boards that troubled other girl surfers, and could handle bigger, more ugly waves without fuss."

At age 14, less than ten months after entering her first surfing competition, the tall, blond, easy-smiling Trim was a surprise winner in the 1968 New South Wales state titles. A few weeks later, having just turned 15, she won the Australian National Titles. Trim's heart was set on representing Australia in that year’s World Surfing Championships, held that year in Puerto Rico, but contest officials were unable to come up with any travel funds for female surfers—something they did for the top male competitors. Trim thus became, as one Sydney paper put it, the “champion without a sponsor,” and the Australian team left for Puerto Rico without her.

It was the beginning of a truly demeaning age for Australian women surfers, and Trim suffered more than most. She was by this time the only female member of the talent-filled Shane Surfboards team that included Ted Spencer and Russell Hughes, but in early 1969, before Trim had even turned 16, she was asked to pose nude for a magazine ad, laying on her back beneath a surfboard, with a tag line reading “I Love My Shane.” She refused, and the sponsorship with Shane ended not long thereafter.

Trim placed third in the 1969 national titles, but bounced back in 1970 for her second championship win, adding a second NSW state title for good measure. But she was unable to carry the momentum into that year's World Championships, held in Victoria, where she only managed a semifinal finish. The following year Trim finished runner-up to Gail Couper in the national titles.

For the next World Championships, held in San Diego in 1972, Trim was again unable to come up with travel expenses on her own and received no aid from sponsors, or national and international surf organizations. She missed the event.

The year prior, Trim, age 18 and already known for being upfront and no-nonsense, came out to friends and family as gay. Those closest to Trim, including her father and uncle, were surprised but accepting and supportive. The surfing world at large, however, pulled further away. As Jeff Bremer later wrote, “that darker flip-side to surf culture was still there. [Judy] spoke up for gay rights when hostility was widespread.”

By 1975, Trim had removed herself entirely from the surf scene. In what almost reads as a final insult to her career, there are virtually no extant photos of Trim surfing or any descriptions of her wave-riding style and form. As women’s pro surfing took root in the second-half of the 1970s, Trim was already all but forgotten.

In years to come, Trim would struggle with drugs and alcohol; by the mid-2010s, however, she was in recovery, had reconnected with old surfing friends, and was looking forward to getting back in the water.

A famous 1972 John Witzig photo of Trim, posed in front of her aging Buick surf wagon, along with five other Aussie women surfers and Nat Young, is in the Australian National Archives.

Trim, Judy

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Encyclopedia of Surfing

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The Sunday Joint

Encyclopedia of Surfing

Features

The Sunday Joint