Christian Surfer Refuses to Surf With Trans Women

Right wing media has a new darling of women's athletics, and it’s a professional woman surfer this time.

by Evan Urquhart

Multiple news outlets from both the right and the mainstream have written stories about an Instagram post by Bethany Hamilton, a professional surfer who lost an arm to a shark at the age of 13, where she voiced her opposition to allowing trans women to surf in women’s competitions and declared that she would refuse to compete unless the rule is changed. Throughout her career, Hamilton has been vocal about her Christian faith, which she credits for allowing her to continue to surf after losing her arm. Hamilton mentioned other sports including running and swimming, and insinuated that trans women were dominating those sports. Although trans women have been able to compete as women in the Olympics since 2004, and various other women’s competitions for that long or longer, they have never dominated any women’s sport. In fact, no single trans woman has been the top woman athlete in any sport, and the highest performing trans women athletes have never exceeded the top cis women in their sport.

Right wing media have promoted and praised Hamilton, and in some cases exhibited thir typical shoddy journalism as well. The Federalist’s story stated that Hamilton has been supported by both men and women surfers, linking to an article on the surfing website Beach Grit which named four supporters, all of whom were men (the Federalist author may have been confused by the fact that one male surfer’s first name is Kelly). Assigned is not aware of any professional women surfers who have publicly supported Hamilton’ stance.

screenshot from the Federalist

Surfing has long been known as a notorously sexist sport, where women are encouraged to lean in to their sex appeal and were excluded from competitions to ride the biggest waves for many years. A lesbian pro-surfer, Keala Kennelly, has spoken out against the homophobia and hypersexuality involved in women’s surfing. Kennelly was one of a small group of women involved in fighting for equal prize money for women in surfing, as well as the right to participate in the big wave competitions, which happen only once or twice a year.