Trans darts star was left bed-bound by ‘scary’ abuse after taking a girls’s qualifying place within the World Darts Championship: Noa-Lynn Van Leuven speaks out earlier than Ally Pally return
Transgender darts star Noa-Lynn Van Leuven has opened up about dealing with backlash from ‘scary and s***ty’ people in a candid new interview.
Van Leuven, 29, is making her return to the World Darts Championship this week against Peter Wright a year after becoming the first transgender woman to ever compete at the tournament.
She was however knocked out by Kevin Doets on her debut in North London before being relentlessly abused by trolls on social media.
Now, the Dutch woman has opened about what has been a hugely difficult year ahead of her return to Alexandra Palace for darts’ premium competition.
‘I basically only got out of bed when I was hungry,’ she told Oche 180. ‘Then I’d grab a bag of chips, lie back down and watch Netflix all day.
‘But as long as you just keep going and don’t think too much, you get by. Last year I had so many tournaments that I didn’t have time to dwell on how I was really doing.
Transgender darts star Noa-Lynn Van Leuven has opened up about dealing with backlash from ‘scary and s***ty’ people in a candid new interview
Van Leuven, 29, is making her return to the World Darts Championship this week against Peter Wright a year after becoming the first transgender woman to ever compete at the tournament
‘First this tournament, then that Worlds. But when all that is over, the crash comes.
‘It felt like I ran into a massive concrete wall. Helping others matters more to me than thinking about myself. If there’s even one person who thinks I’m not crazy, I’m allowed to be myself, then all the misery is worth it.’
Van Leuven continued to participate in women-only competitions throughout 2024 and early 2025 before eventually being banned from doing so by the World Darts Federation (WDF) in July.
The new rule meant that transgender women would only be able to compete in the Open category under the WDF. The Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) are however yet to follow in the organisation’s footsteps.
It came after Anca Zijlstra and Aileen ge Graaf pulled out of the Dutch national team because they did not want to play alongside ‘a biological’ man, something Van Leuven found ‘incredibly painful’.
Female darts star Deta Hedman also later withdrew from the PDC Women’s Series after being drawn against the transgender player at the quarter-finals stage. ‘I’m not playing against a man in a woman’s body,’ she told German publication Bild at the time.
‘I haven’t experienced reactions as intense as back then,’ Van Leuven said of the drama surrounding her inclusion in The Netherlands’ squad. ‘Everything I’d been through before suddenly resurfaced.
‘At a certain point I was convinced that all people were scary and s***ty’. I just had nothing left to fall back.’
Female star Deta Hedman pulled out of the PDC Women’s Series after being drawn against the transgender star earlier this year
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But legend of the sport Michael van Gerwen is a supporter of Van Leuven
However Van Leuven has earned the support of some of darts’ biggest names. Michael van Gerwen, for instance, described the WDF’s decision to ban her as ‘heartbreaking’.
‘She does what she does and she can play terrific darts,’ the three-time world champion said.
‘Let her play nice. For me, there’s never been a discussion but I don’t make the rules.
‘The PDC has people who go over them. They can never make the right choice anyway. If they go left, people say they should go right and vice-versa. Everyone has an opinion about it, but there is no point at all in continuing to argue.’
Responding to the WDF’s decision in July, Van Leuven wrote on Instagram: ‘This past Monday, the WDF released a new policy regarding gender eligibility.
‘I want to take a moment to respond. This decision does affect me personally though, thankfully, not too severely at this point in time. But still, it hurts.
‘Once again, it’s a loss for the trans community in sports. And that breaks my heart.
‘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.
‘My heart goes out to all the athletes impacted by this. We remain visible. We keep going.’
