Trans darts player Noa-Lynn van Leuven set to make history at World Championships
Noa-Lynn van Leuven. (PDC Darts)
Trans darts player Noa-Lynn van Leuven will make history this week when she competes at the World Championships.
Van Leuven, who transitioned in 2021 and who has faced controversy for playing against cis women, qualified for the Professional Darts Corporation World Championship in October – the first trans woman to do so.
And on Tuesday (17 December), she will face Kevin Doets at London’s Alexandra Palace.
‘I just want to be Noa’
“It’s going to be a big achievement for me and for my kind of people,” Van Leuven told the PA news agency. “But I guess I just want to be Noa, I just want to play darts and not always having to talk about the fact I’m also transgender.
“I’m a darts player and I’m terribly good at it. But I guess it’s a big thing and I’m also the first Dutch woman to play on the Alexandra Palace stage.”
The darts star travelled to London for the match following a double shift as a junior sous chef, a career she intends to continue. “It also is a bit of a stress relief for me. We all know Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen and sometimes it can be like that in our kitchen, but I enjoy working there,” she said.
Trans darts player’s online abuse battle
Van Leuven has been open about the abuse she has faced, revealing earlier this month that she’d suffered panic attacks and depression in the wake of a backlash to qualifying for the world championships.
Tennis star Martina Navratilova, who has been a vocal opponent of trans inclusion in women’s sport, wrote: “No male bodies in women’s sports please, not even in darts. Again, women get the short end of the stick and it stinks.”
Van Leuven responded to the attacks in a statement given to Dutch outlet NOS (via Express), saying: “I don’t really feel the need to go further into it. This has been their choice and not mine.
“I think the only unfortunate thing about this issue is that a lot of people forget that I am also a human being.”
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