Hawaiian big wave world champion Keala Kennelly gave the speech of the evening at the WSL Awards which took place two days ago in Australia, prior to the start of the World Champions Circuit (WCC) at Duranbah Beach or Greenmount.

Kennelly referred to how much more important it is for her to win her first world title now that she is openly gay than when she was 25, when she almost won but narrowly missed out.

“I needed to dream bigger because when I was 25 I was hiding in the closet, soaked in shame, living in fear and hating myself because I didn’t think I could be a world champion and gay at the same time. I needed to dream bigger because now I can be the first world champion who is openly gay. And I can be proud of who I am and I can love myself for who I am and not who people want me to be,” Kennelly said.

She added: “It is my hope that I can inspire other LGBT athletes who suffer in silence to live their truth.”.

Kennelly was crowned world big wave champion at the event. She was a member of the professional world tour and then went on to excel in heavy seas around the world.

On March 8, International Women's Day, Kennelly wrote on the American website The Inertia: “Being gay is not a choice, pretending to be straight to save my career was and it almost killed me.” The Kauai surfer said she did indeed have “suicidal depressive” behaviors.

Keala says that for as long as she can remember she felt like a man but she was not able to feel that freely in the environment of the ASP tournaments (now WSL).

“I started hiding [her sexual orientation] when I decided to go on the world tour. Because I saw how other people saw lesbians on the tour and I saw how they assumed they were not feminine, aggressive-looking women. I saw the way they were treated and they were treated horribly. Everyone talked badly about them and they usually didn’t have sponsors, and it seemed like their life was harder and had more problems. That was very scary for me, so at that point I decided to put homophobic thoughts about being gay into myself and I got a boyfriend to try to hide it,” she told The Inertia.

“There are still no openly gay athletes in the TC,” he said. “The WSL has created a better environment but athletes are still afraid of losing their sponsors.” 

Kennelly says everything began to change when, at 19 or 20, she suffered appendicitis on a trip to Panama and Costa Rica and thought she was going to die. “I remember crying and thinking, ‘God, I’m going to die in this hospital in Costa Rica and nobody really knows me because I kept too much to myself. ’ I hid too much about myself because I was afraid of losing my sponsors and that experience changed me.”

“Yes, I lost a lot of sponsors and I earn a lot less now than when I was in the closet. But money isn’t everything. I’m much happier now. I was miserable when I was hiding, it doesn’t feel good,” she concluded.