Queer surf community demands action after Abu Dhabi is added to World Surf League tour schedule

The queer surf community is demanding action after surfing’s governing body, the World Surf League (WSL), announced its tour schedule for 2025 will include a stop in Abu Dhabi, where homosexuality is illegal and gender diversity is not recognised.

This decision has been strongly opposed by the queer surf community for endangering LGBTQ+ athletes and fans due to human rights concerns in the country. A petition has been launched by three surf groups – Queer Surf Club, Surf Equity and Wave Wahines CIC – demanding the WSL removes Abu Dhabi from the tour until a safe environment can be guaranteed for every athlete and fan.

Abu Dhabi, capital of the UAE, was chosen due to the pending opening of the world’s biggest artificial wave. The wave is the latest wave pool project by Kelly Slater Wave Co – a company which the WSL acquired a majority stake in in 2016.

In the UAE, same-sex relationships are criminalised under both civil and Sharia law, leaving individuals vulnerable to severe penalties including capital punishment. Furthermore, transgender identities remain unrecognised under the law, and discriminatory regulations actively suppress expressions of gender nonconformity, perpetuating harm against marginalised communities.

This is particularly poignant, as Australian pro-surfer and Olympian Tyler Wright, who has competed on the tour for over 14 years and for the last four has proudly worn the progress flag on her sleeve, identifies as bisexual. The WSL’s decision is forcing her to choose between her career and her safety. However, the surfer is unable to comment on the matter due to a contractual clause prohibiting her from ‘casting the WSL in a negative light’.

Frazer Riley, Founder of Queer Surf Club, says: “We do not support the WSL’s selection of Abu Dhabi as a 2025 tour location, in a country where homosexuality is punishable by death and trans identities are not legally recognised.

“Against all of their supposed Diversity & Inclusion commitments, this decision by the WSL puts their LGBTQ+ athletes, support teams and spectators at risk, and goes against everything we believe the sport of surfing stands for; peace, inclusivity and accessibility for all. We stand in solidarity with Tyler Wright and with all LGBTQ+ people globally living under oppression.”

Surf groups across the globe are uniting and amplifying their collective voice to call out the WSL. A petition demanding Abu Dhabi is removed from the tour has garnered the support of over 55 surf groups, including LNDN Surf Girl Community from London and other supporters from Australia, Brazil, Ireland, Mexico, South Africa, United Kingdom and United States, alongside more than 1500 individual signatories, and the numbers continue to grow.

Surfing is an increasingly popular sport within the LGBTQ+ community, and a number of groups and communities are dedicated to ensuring the ocean is an inclusive place. Sabrina Brennan, Founder and Director of Surf Equity, and Co-Founder of Committee for Equity in Women’s Surfing, comments: “By holding competitions in Abu Dhabi, the WSL is forcing LGBTQ+ athletes to compete in a location where their identity could put them at risk of imprisonment.”

Yvette Cave, Founder of Wave Wahines CIC, concludes: “This petition was created from a place of inclusion and Aloha, something Wave Wahines was founded upon. The decision to hold a contest in an environment that disallows by law anyone to be their true self goes against the fundamental roots of surfing and is something that myself as a mother of three and surf mama and sister to hundreds if not thousands more – is not something I could stand by and just accept without showing the feelings of myself, my club.”