OSHKOSH, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – The Oshkosh Women’s Fund’s Annual Power of the Purse event is causing controversy in the community this year after debate surrounding the event’s chosen keynote speaker.
Last week, the Women’s Fund announced on social media professional surfer Bethany Hamilton would be the speaker at the May 2024 event. Hamilton is best known for surviving a 2003 shark attack as a teenager in which her left arm was bitten off, inspiring the movie Soul Surfer.
Some of the response to Hamilton’s selection as speaker has been positive, but others are concerned about comments she has made regarding transgender athletes.
“Is a hormone level an honest and accurate depiction that someone indeed is a male or female? Is it as simple as this?” Hamilton said in an Instagram post from February 2023.
The issue goes back to that post. In the video, Hamilton outlined her concerns with the World Surf League’s adoption of a policy allowing athletes to participate in the women’s division based on testosterone levels.
“I personally won’t be competing in or supporting the World Surf League if this rule remains,” Hamilton said.
Some in the Fox Valley believe those comments are transphobic. In a five page, online letter to the Women’s Fund, over 70 names expressed their displeasure with the choice. The letter reads in part:
“Hamilton’s boycott is not motivated by concerns about athlete safety or maintaining the integrity of a professional sport. Bethany Hamilton simply does not personally want to accept transgender women as women.”
It goes on to address what they say is the impact of the choice.
“It undermines their community partnership initiatives toward ending isolation and loneliness, promoting youth mental and physical health, and supporting parents. It also creates and enhances a direct platform for amplifying anti-transgender bigotry in our own backyard.”
“Cancel culture is just going way too far in this state,” Wisconsin State Representative Ron Tusler said. “This poor girl who lost her arm to a shark at age 13 is now being attacked because she doesn’t want to compete against men in sports?”
A similar, though slightly different, debate over high school athletics has played out in Wisconsin in recent months. In the state, athletes must undergo hormone therapy before competing with the gender of their choice.
Legislation passed last year in the Assembly looks to change that. Tusler was one of those who supported the measure.
“We want to be sympathetic to the folks that are dealing with these issues, but at the same time, there’s lots of female athletes in Wisconsin that have worked really hard at their athletics,” Tusler said. “To put them in that competition is just totally unfair.”
Governor Tony Evers has vowed to veto those bills.
FOX 11 reached out to the Executive Director of the Oshkosh Women’s Fund for comment on the negative reaction to selecting Hamilton as keynote speaker, but we have not heard back.
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