Once again, Dutch darts star Noa-Lynn van Leuven finds herself in a fuss. She would normally face Deta Hedman in the quarter-finals of the WDF Denmark Open in Esbjerg, but the 64-year-old English woman withdrew from the tournament. The reason: she doesn’t want to compete against transgender people.
“I don’t play against a man in a women’s event,” Hedman told German newspaper Bild. It is not the first time that Hedman has spoken out against the policy of darts associations regarding transgender people. The veteran previously called for trans athletes to be excluded from women’s tournaments. In 2023, she said that trans women have advantages over biological women. Hedman argued that girls during puberty have to endure all kinds of discomforts that boys simply do not experience.
Hedman supporters agreed with her decision not to face Van Leuven in the quarterfinals. The fans offered the darts star compensation for the lost prize money. Denmark Darts decided to pay her for the event after all, because she allegedly told her that she was ill. Hedman disagreed with that statement and responded to X. “Not a fake disease. I said myself that I wouldn’t play against a man in a women’s event.” The 64-year-old Englishwoman also started a campaign on X to protect women’s sports.
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Not the first riot for Van Leuven
It is not the first time that Van Leuven has been at the center of a riot. At the end of March, Anca Zijlstra and Aileen de Graaf left the Dutch darts team because they had great difficulty being on a team with a trans woman. “The moment when you are ashamed to play for the Dutch team, because a biological man plays for the women’s team. It’s time to go,” Zijlstra wrote on Facebook at the time. Remarkably, Zijlstra recently changed her profile photo on her Facebook account to the same image with which Hedman designed her campaign.
The 27-year-old Van Leuven is having a hard time. — © ANP / Olaf Kraak Photography
The Dutch darts association pointed out that the 27-year-old darts player is indeed eligible to play for the women according to the rules. “Noa-Lynn complies with the rules and guidelines that we have agreed internationally on gender and sex diverse people. She goes through life as a woman and that is also stated in her passport, so we fully support her participating with the women,” says director Paul Engelbertink.
PDC boss Matthew Porter responded in a podcast to the Dutch darts riot as follows: “The rubbish she is being subjected to is unacceptable.”