‘I am not enjoying in opposition to males in girls’s occasions.’ That is what British darts champion Information Hedman mentioned on Saturday. Therefore, she misplaced her match in opposition to transgender competitor Noah-Lynn van Leeuwen on the Denmark Open.
Sure for that. She is 64 and has been a vocal critic of guidelines that enable males to compete in girls’s sports activities. She is well-known amongst girls’s dart followers. She had earlier referred to as on the Skilled Darts Company (PDC) and the World Darts Federation (WDF) to exclude males from girls’s tournaments.
As an alternative of competing with van Leeuwen within the quarterfinals of the WDF match, he boycotted the sport.
A spherical of applause for Information Hedman.
He posted his choice on Fb two days earlier than the match. “Girls and ladies need to be champions in their very own sport.”
Hedman wrote: “For months I’ve struggled with transgender individuals enjoying in girls’s world-ranked occasions. I assumed it was incorrect from day one, I haven’t got an issue with transgender individuals in life.
“I am nowhere close to Noa-Lynn in Dust however in equity looks as if a stunning particular person, I met Victoria Monaghan at Lakeside and need to admit she’s a correct character we satirized and had fairly a couple of laughs, however my private view ought to be trans girls. Can not play in rating occasions.
“Noah is a very nice particular person, nobody is disputing that, it is simply my perception and the idea of many different feminine gamers that trans girls should not be in ranked occasions.
“On the latest Killarney Competition I upset an excellent feminine participant who performed on the high finish of the WDF occasion and the PDC Girls’s Collection got here to me in tears saying the problem had actually obtained to her and was contemplating strolling away from it. Darts.”
Noah-Lin is a Dutchman who began his migration in 2022. She is now a daily on the ladies’s tour. She grew to become the primary trans lady to win the Challenger Tour in March.
Hedman suffered no monetary hardship for shedding the sport.
American former collegiate swimmer Riley Gaines supplied to forfeit any prize cash to Hedman and forfeit his matches.
Hedman nonetheless responded: ‘@Riley_Gaines_ Thanks to your sort supply, however Denmark Darts paid me in full for the occasion.’
She then tagged an account referred to as SaveWomensSports and wrote: ‘This has brought on a variety of upset within the sport I like. Individuals can do no matter they need in life however I do not assume biologically born males ought to compete in girls’s sports activities.’
Dutch girls are additionally not accepting males in girls’s sports activities.
Van Leeuwen’s two Dutch compatriots stop their nationwide workforce in protest at his second aggressive win in March.
Anka Zijlstra revealed she was pulling out ‘with a heavy coronary heart’ – earlier than world quantity two Eileen de Graaf resigned hours later vowing to not symbolize the Netherlands.
Martina Navratilova has remained steadfast in her opposition to males competing in opposition to girls in sports activities. He’s right here, on board.
Outraged by the win, 18-time Grand Slam tennis champion Martina Navratilova mentioned: ‘Males’s our bodies do not exist within the girls’s sport – not even in darts.’
Posting on social media platform X, Martina added: ‘Once more – girls get the quick finish of the stick. And it stinks.’
Tennis icon Martina Navratilova intervenes in darts controversy: ‘There is no such thing as a male company in girls’s sport’ #Darts #DartsNews https://t.co/26E23RFHHo
— DartsNews02 (@DartsNews02) March 25, 2024
“Intervene.” hey
What it takes to make a change. Girls should refuse to go together with the normalization of trans athletes. Let girls have their very own competitors with out destroying the game. Everybody ought to converse up in help of ladies and ladies in sports activities earlier than it’s too late.
