Transgender darts star Noa-Lynn van Leuven hails Ally Pally crowd's reaction during loss
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Transgender Noa-Lynn van Leuven won over the Ally Pally crowd - even in defeat - and made a stand for equality in darts. Beaten 3-1 by another Dutch player, Kevin Doets, Van Leuven went down fighting and praised the Professional Darts Corporation for their enlightened rulebook where other sports slam the door on trans competitors. Earlier this year, Netherlands team-mates Anca Zijlstra and Aileen de Graaf refused to play in the same team as Van Leuven, while England’s Deta Herman forfeited a Denmark Open quarter-final because she does not agree with transgender competitors in women’s sport.
But fans warmed to her when she took the first set as Van Leuven outgunned her compatriot 6-3 in maximum 180s and produced the game’s only 100-plus finishes. In the end, her 20 treble-less visits cost her a famous win at the Paddy Power PDC World Championship and she said: “Anyone who is discriminating against me, or being terrible to me, it says more about them than me - I just want to play darts.
“The PDC have been really supportive and they stand behind their own rules. At the Grand Slam there was a bit of booing at my first game but I didn’t expect the crowd here to be hostile, I hoped they would be with me and I thought they were with me.
“In the end, I guess the difference was inexperience. I want to become a better player, and the only way I’m going to do that is by being up on that stage competing against the best players. Obviously I want to come back next year and I’ll go to Q school in three weeks to try and win a Tour card.”.
