A Peter Drouyn moment seared into my head for all eternity: We’re in the lounge room of Peter’s home on the Gold Coast, Peter seated in a chair, film director Alan White and I standing behind a camera on a tripod. We’d followed Westerly Windina to Bangkok for their gender reassignment surgery, and to the 50thanniversary of the Surfing Australia Awards, where, much to their surprise, they were embraced gushingly. Most recently, we’d learned that Westerly had transitioned back to Peter. Alan and I travelled from LA to the Gold Coast to find out why. Westerly was a dreamer. Along with bursts of self-liberation they’d hoped to kickstart a career in showbiz – “singing and comedy sketches.”
After explaining how they’d fallen into a post-surgery depression – “a year-and-a-half of absolute hell” – the question begged: “Had Westerly realised her showbusiness dreams might they still be around?” Insensitive perhaps, but I felt compelled to ask.
Peter took a moment to think about it. “Yes, I think so. I think so because she was in the zone, she was in the moment. It appears even now that [Westerly] was just some sort of fluctuation, some sort of mutation/metamorphosis that came on and then disappeared, like a chameleon or something.”
There are a thousand ways to interpret this, and I have contemplated most of them. Which is why I love Peter/Westerly. They probe the big questions. Is identity inherent, or something we forge? Is this grapple with the self inevitably painful, or can we slither and finesse through it? And just what the hell is this ‘good life’ that the ancient Greeks spoke of, and what does it look like here in the early 21st century? And if a tree falls in the forest, i.e., if it’s not done publicly…?
My fascination began in 2009 when I wrote a profile of Westerly Windina for The Surfer’s Journal. The piece seesawed back and forth between the backstory/bio of PD and the present-day plight, dreams, and exigencies (gender reassignment surgery at the forefront) of WW. There was a distinct before and after. Westerly spoke of Peter in the third person past tense. They often flubbed their own pronouns.
I was rapt for several reasons. Even before Peter became Westerly they topped my list for ‘Most Interesting Surfer on the Planet’ award. At the height of their athletic powers they dropped out of the surf scene to study acting at the prestigious NIDA (National Institute of Dramatic Art). Then they dropped back into the scene to invent man-on-man surfing, in the 1977 Stubbies Pro. Then they jumped on tour and finished number 6 in the world. Then, perhaps on the fading end of their career, they challenged four-time world champion Mark Richards to what they called The Superchallenge, a Rumble in the Jungle-style showdown for which they took out ads in the surf mags featuring themself clad in underwear, smeared in ketchup, the words “I’m going to kill or be killed” leaping off the page. They introduced surfing to China in 1985. They designed and received a patent for the “Drouyn Wave Stadium” (circa 1980s). The list goes on.
But what appealed to me most about Westerly Windina was the way they inadvertently poked and prodded. Trans-awareness has thankfully made great leaps in the past decade, but when Westerly first went public, on the Today Tonight show in 2008, their peers and contemporaries were stunned. They didn’t know what to do with this aberration of surf bro-dom.
Inspired to dig deeper into just who Westerly Windina is, and Peter Drouyn was, I teamed up with Alan White on a documentary, working title: Westerly. We’ve since ridden an emotional rollercoaster with Westerly/Peter. We’ve loved and occasionally loathed them. Then bounced back to deep love. Then never wanted to speak to them again. Then found the love again. A marriage of sorts.
We were in post-production when we learned that Westerly had detransitioned. It came as a shock to all of us – Westerly included. After our aforementioned visit we came up with a new title for the film: The Life and Death of Westerly Windina.
What did I learn from my time with Westerly/Peter? That identity is murky. That the subconscious works in mysterious ways. That just when we think we know someone… And just when we think we know ourselves… That kindness, compassion, and humility are essential, because whatever convictions we think we may possess are subject to swift obliteration.
Last I saw Peter they were living on the Gold Coast, loving on their son Zac, and writing sketches, plays, screenplays, and novels. And bodysurfing. “I’m still perfecting my technique,” they told us. When we asked if we could film them they replied, “Yes, but not underwater. What I’m doing down below is top secret.”
