Transgender darts champion Noa-Lynn van Leuven is speaking out after the sport’s international governing body released a new gender-eligibility policy that prohibits trans women from female competitions.
“It’s a loss for the trans community in sports. And that breaks my heart,” van Leuven wrote on Instagram on Thursday. “As a trans person in the darts world, I know how vital inclusion is — not just on paper, but in practice. It’s disheartening to see yet another policy framed around ‘fairness’ that ultimately results in exclusion, without truly considering the people behind the labels.”
The World Darts Federation released its new gender-eligibility policy Monday. The rule change, which is effective immediately, states that entry and participation in the federation’s women’s and girls ranking tournaments and cups will only be open to players who were “recorded female at birth.” Under this policy, trans women are ineligible, and trans men are eligible as long as they are not undergoing hormone treatment. All trans women and trans men are eligible to compete in the open category.
Van Leuven, a Dutch darts star who has won several women’s titles in the sport, will be banned from WDF’s female tournaments under the new guidelines.
In a statement announcing the change, the federation said the decision followed a vote at the WDF General Meeting in September where the majority of its members, which consist of national darts organizing bodies, voted in favor of limiting participation in women’s and girls tournaments to those assigned female at birth.
“We understand these changes may be challenging for people who want to compete in darts in the gender which they are now registered as. The WDF has directly contacted its Member Countries so as they can discuss these changes with affected players directly,” the WDF said in its statement.
The participation of trans women in women’s sports has been a conservative-fueled hot-button issue for several years, but it reached a crescendo in February, when President Donald Trump signed an executive order prohibiting transgender women and girls from competing in female sports. The order asserted that allowing trans women to compete in athletic competitions that align with their gender identity “is demeaning, unfair, and dangerous to women and girls, and denies women and girls the equal opportunity to participate and excel in competitive sports.”
Since Trump’s trans sports order, a long list of national and international sports organizations have banned or restricted trans women’s participation in female sports, including the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, World Athletics Council and National Collegiate Athletic Association.
