Noa-Lynn van Leuven made her World Darts Championship debut on Tuesday (Image: PA)
Noa-Lynn van Leuven has passionately fired back at those criticising her after she became the first transgender player to compete at the .The 28-year-old, who transitioned in 2021, made her Alexandra Palace debut in the first round against Kevin Doets. She made a strong start but lost her momentum in an error-strewn second set, with Doets taking full advantage to secure a 3-1 victory.While no booing was heard from the crowd on that occasion, Van Leuven often faces transphobic abuse while playing darts. She was loudly jeered during a match against Michael van Gerwen at the Grand Slam of Darts last month.She has also faced opposition from fellow players, .
The 28-year-old made a strong start but was eventually overpowered by Kevin Doets (Image: GETTY)
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Following her defeat to Doets, Van Leuven was asked why she continues to play on despite the abuse she receives. She replied: “I guess it’s my love of darts. It’s just a great game. I love the game and I just want to play darts.”Why does it matter who you are? I just play darts. It’s just the love of the game and anyone who is discriminating against me or being terrible about me, it says more about them than me.”Van Leuven went on to admit that she fears being banned from women-only darts events in the near future, with other sports taking measures to restrict transgender athletes from competing in certain categories.”At this moment, any sport is being accused of transphobia,” she said. “I think if you look at padel, I’ve seen something like trans people getting banned from that.
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“If we look at the WDF, it’s going to be the same if they can make it up with the rules. I guess it’s terrible for trans people at the moment to play any sport.”Doets, meanwhile, hailed the Alexandra Palace crowd for showing respect to Van Leuven rather than subjecting her to the abuse she has faced at other tournaments in recent months.”I was expecting a lot of bad behaviour from the crowd today, but I don’t think I heard a single boo,” said the Dutchman. “I like that, because I’ve done interviews before the tournament and I thought that she was going to get booed a lot.”But they were great, they were really good.”