Rip Curl Faces Boycott Calls

Australian brand Rip Curl is facing boycott calls after featuring transgender surfer Sasha Jane Lowerson on its Instagram page and apparently severing ties with pro surfer Bethany Hamilton.

Rip Curl came under a flood of criticism after using Western Australian professional longboarder Lowerson in a promo post for women’s surfing last week. Lowerson appeared on the surfing brand’s Instagram page on Thursday, January 25, as part of its Meet the Local Heroes of West Australia campaign.

Lowerson’s inclusion in the since-deleted post came after Hamilton’s past comments about transgender individuals in sports sparked threats to boycott an upcoming women’s event in Wisconsin, where she will serve as keynote speaker.

In 2023, Hamilton posted a video on social media responding to a policy by the World Surfing League championships that would allow transgender women to compete in the female surfing category if they can show a specific level of testosterone, USA Today previously reported.

“I personally think that the best solution would be to create a different division so that all can have a fair opportunity to showcase their passion and talent,” Hamilton said, adding that she would not compete if the policy stands.

Reiterating her stance, Hamilton wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter, on January 29: “Male-bodied athletes should not be competing in female sports. Period.”

Over the past several months, there has been ongoing controversy surrounding the inclusion of transgender individuals into different sports categories. At least 20 U.S. states have imposed legislation that bans transgender women from competing in female sports categories, with many conservatives arguing that transgender women have an advantage over biological females.

A number of social media users agreeing with Hamilton’s stance have taken to X over the last few days to express their outrage at Rip Curl’s inclusion of Lowerson, who in 2022 become the first transgender woman surfer to compete in Western Australia’s state championships.

On January 25, Riley Gaines, a former Division I collegiate swimmer who has been vocal against inclusion of transgender athletes in women’s sports, weighed led the charge against Rip Curl.

“You mean to tell me @ripcurl dropped Bethany Hamilton for opposing men surfing in the women’s league then picked up male surfer who surfs in the women’s league as a women’s ambassador? Crazzzzyyy,” Gaines wrote on X.

Responding, skateboarder Taylor Silverman commented: “Another company to boycott. @ripcurl is a joke now.”

Oli London, a British influencer who previously identified as transracial, gender neutral and transgender, also sparked discussion on the matter, sharing quotes from a Daily Mail article and a screenshot of Rip Curl’s Lowerson post.

“Boycott #RipCurl,” an X user responded, describing the brand as “another company bending to wokeism and trans rubbish. Men cannot be women. Stop insulting us.”

U.K.-based journalist Jill Foster also weighed in on Rip Curl, writing on X that the brand has “dropped Bethany Hamilton (who lost her arm in a shark attack) from their ad campaigns. They have instead used Sasha Lowerson to advertise women’s surfing. Their total contempt could not be more clear.”

When she was 13 years old, Hamilton lost her left arm after a shark attack in 2003 in Hawaii.

“Boycott @ripcurl into oblivion,” an X user wrote in response to Foster’s post.

Amid the boycott calls, some X users pushed back. “Let me go ahead and follow Rip Curl’s account, and also check their website for stuff I might need,” wrote one. “You don’t get to use a word like ‘misogyny’ to describe a company promoting transgender women. Conservatives don’t actually care about women, drop the performative b******.”

While it has been widely reported that Hamilton has been dropped by Rip Curl, no statements have been released confirming this. Newsweek has contacted representatives of Rip Curl via email for comment.

In 2022, Lowerson took first place in both the Open Women’s and Open Women’s Logger competitions at the West Coast Suspensions Longboard & Logger State Championships.

“To be the first transgender woman competing in surfing hasn’t been an easy ride emotionally, but the amount of support I’ve been shown has been phenomenal and I’m so grateful to be involved, welcomed and embraced within the longboard community in Australia,” Lowerson told Surfing Western Australia, the organization behind the event, following the victory.

Lowerson also spoke about the difficulties she faced in coming to terms with identifying as transgender, according to The Australian.

“I’ve been surfing since I was a little boy, I was a good junior surfer, I was surfing against grown men at 14 and winning,” Lowerson said. “I knew at a very young age that I wasn’t a normal boy. For the best part of [my life], I thought [Sasha] could never live, I had to put her in a box. That is something a lot of girls experience.

“About every two years, I’d want to kill myself and I’ve had a good go at it. I had a real wake-up call in [2020] then I thought ‘What are you doing? You are living a lie.'”

Lowerson also spoke about the decision to continue surfing after coming out as transgender, telling the publication: “I made a decision to be truthful to me and the world and that is when I decided to unveil Sasha as such.

“I started a medical transition at the start of 2021. Up until then, I hid from people surfing, I stopped surfing for six months. I basically took six months out of the water. Then I woke up one morning and said, ‘No it’s been my life, I can’t just walk away from my passion and life.'”