Women at the Sharp End
World darts is helping destroy the women's game.
Female darts players are being forced to compete against trans-identified males or they will face disciplinary action if they refuse.
As a professional competitive sport, women’s darts is still in its infancy. The first female world championship wasn’t held until 2001 and opportunities for female players to earn a decent living on the professional circuit remain scant. Nevertheless, women’s hard won competitions and opportunities are already being plundered by male players. It seems we are not allowed anything of our own, not even one tiny corner of an already male-dominated sport.
Noa-Lynn van Leuven is a Dutch professional darts player who has been playing darts since childhood and competed on the Netherlands youth team. Now 28 years old and identifying as trans, he has been making “Big strides in the Women’s Series” since he started competing in female competitions two years ago.
Last year Noa-Lynn van Leuven won the Denmark Women’s Open and took second place in the Welsh Classic Ladies Singles tournament. He also took part in the prestigious Women’s World Matchplay tournament, one of only eight players able to compete for the £10,000 prize pot. He knows his participation in the women’s game causes concern amongst female players but he doesn’t care. “If they really want to get rid of me”, he says, “They should play better. Practise more”.
In March, van Leuven won a Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) Women’s Series event, stealing the title from 20-year-old Irish player, Katie Sheldon. This prompted female darts players, Anca Zijlstra and Aileen de Graaf, to quit the Dutch national team rather than have to play alongside him.
Anca Zijlstra announced her departure from the team in a Facebook post. “The moment you're embarrassed to be a part of the Dutch Team, because a biological man is playing in the women's team, it's time to go. I think that with sports there has to be an equal and level playing field which is to be used and accepted in good faith.”
Announcing her decision to leave the team, Aileen De Graaf commented, “At some point you have to make decisions if something goes against your feelings. You have to do what feels right for you. Hence my decision to also leave the Dutch team”.
Van Leuven isn’t the only trans-identified male darts player to participate in female teams and competitions. Other examples include 28-year-old Samantha Lewis and 51-year-old Victoria Monaghan. The latter competed at the World Darts Federation Women’s World Championship in December last year.
These players are being cheered on by the sport’s regulatory bodies. The Darts Regulation Authority, for example, allows trans-identified male players to compete in women’s events as long as they have a testosterone level below 10 nmo/L. The sport’s governing body, the World Darts Federation (WDF), issued a statement in April this year to reiterate its position; that it will allow trans-identified males to compete in women’s events as long as they “Submit documentation from a medical practitioner that gender reassignment has been ongoing for at least one year”.
We have written previously about 64-year-old darts legend, Deta Hedman, who has been at the forefront of the women’s game for decades. During the 1980s and 1990s, Hedman was one of the players who fought extremely hard for recognition and opportunities in women’s darts. Hedman has often voiced her opposition to trans-identified males competing in women’s darts. Writing on her Facebook account earlier this year, Hedman commented, “The Women’s game should be for biological women, this current path could lead to the death of women’s sport as a separate identity”.
In May, Deta Hedman refused to play against Noa-Lynn van Leuven. The two were due to meet in the quarterfinals of the WDF Denmark Open in Esbjerg, but Hedman bravely forfeited the game in protest.
Now female darts players are being threatened with disciplinary action if they refuse to play against trans-identified males. Ahead of announcing the provisional fields for this year’s world championship, the World Darts Federation, made a statement:
“The WDF wishes to clarify its position on player withdrawals. Once the first dart has been thrown in a tournament, any player that subsequently withdraws from playing a match may be considered to be bringing the game into disrepute and could face disciplinary action. This stance has been taken to suitably protect our Member Countries, their tournaments and tournament sponsors, as well as to preserve the integrity of the WDF ranking system.”
Women dart players should not have their trophies, prize money, competition places and opportunities stolen from them by men. They should not be expected to compete against males who have both physical and social advantages over them. And women should be entitled to their own sport - no justification required - free from males. Yet the very body which should be defending and protecting women’s darts is not only facilitating the participation of trans-identified males, it is robbing women of the right to protest this colonisation of their sport.
The WDF’s message to female players seems to be “Do as you’re told, ladies… or else”.
Thank you JL. Those grinning fools in photos supporting these men. We need far more men within these organisations and sports to stand up and be counted. Maybe we do need to down tools.
I'm not in favour of withdrawing as our livelihoods rest on taking part in whatever field. But unless there is some mass, peaceful, and very clever way to do this, these men will continue their freeze thaw slash and burn destruction of everything we have. They are destroying the planet and we're just amusing little playthings for them. We need every woman and our supporters to withdraw, and we need those women to be protected in whatever way they need to be - with money, with housing, with other career options. Throughout time it's the misallocation and theft of resources that mean we are dependent on the abusive brutes these men are. They happily will destroy nations as they are doing now in 2024.
It's fine for others to sit from behind our keyboards and on our sofas from miles away, but these vile, violent, self-obsessed, power-hungry, abusive zealots are being given permission to ruin everything - to destroy careers, to undermine and take some very perverse form of enjoyment, joy which is actually the thrill from their abuse of us, our vulnerable, our weakest, our bodies, our places and every space. It's foul.
One hopes that when one of these men is enrolled in a women’s tournament, ALL the real women will withdraw just after it starts. Will the WDF* discipline all of them? A couple of ruined tournaments and some disgruntled- and lost - sponsors should do the trick. If that doesn’t work, make another federation that supports women’s sport properly.
* I’m guessing that the current WDF is run by a cabal of very weak men…