Noa-Lynn van Leuven is a Netherlands-born darts player who became the first transgender athlete to compete at the World Darts Championship. Van Leuven received word this week that her career in women’s professional darts has effectively come to an end, not through retirement, but through regulation.
The Darts Regulation Authority (DRA) introduced new guidelines this week prohibiting transgender women from competing in women-only events. For Van Leuven, the news arrived in the form of an email. She responded by recording a tearful video statement for social media.
“I just got an email,” she said. “Apparently, I just got retired. Not by choice, but because I’m no longer allowed to compete. The DRA just decided that trans women are no longer allowed in women’s events, which basically means I’m out.”
According to sources, the 29-year-old has competed on the PDC Women’s Series tour since 2022 and accumulated six event wins during that time. Her most recent appearance for her country came at the Four Nations Cup.
In her video statement, the caption she added to the post read: “On the inside I’m crying. The fluoxetine just hides it. Not my choice. Not just my story. This isn’t the end. I’m just going back to the drawing board.”
She also placed the ruling within a broader context, expressing concern for the transgender community at large.
“I’ve worked so damn hard for years just to get here. I showed up, I competed, I respected the sport, every game, every single day. And now, with just one decision, I am being told I don’t belong anymore,” Van Leuven said.
She continued, “This isn’t just about me. This is another huge hit for the trans community, especially after recent decisions made by the IOC. Every day it’s getting harder and harder for trans people to just exist, to compete. If you think this stops with me, it doesn’t. We just want to be.”
The DRA’s decision follows a similar move by the World Darts Federation (WDF), which last year also barred trans women from women’s-only matchplay events. Van Leuven’s presence in the sport has not been without controversy.
Dutch players Anca Zijlstra and Aileen de Graaf both withdrew from the national team citing their unwillingness to compete alongside what they referred to as “a biological” man, a characterization Van Leuven described as “incredibly painful.”
English player Deta Hedman also withdrew from the PDC Women’s Series after being drawn against Van Leuven at the quarter-final stage, telling German outlet Bild at the time: “I’m not playing against a man in a woman’s body.”
Speaking last December about the backlash she faced following the national team controversy, Van Leuven reflected on how deeply it affected her mentally.
She said, “I haven’t experienced reactions as intense as back then. 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.”
She has, however, found support from some of the most prominent names in the game. Three-time world champion Michael van Gerwen publicly backed her following the WDF ban, calling it “heartbreaking.”
“She does what she does and she can play terrific darts,” van Gerwen 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.”
The DRA ruling also comes shortly after the International Olympic Committee announced mandatory SRY gene testing for athletes, with the governing body stating the measure would help “protect fairness, safety and integrity in the female category.”
Van Leuven directly referenced that decision in her statement, framing the DRA’s move as part of a wider pattern of exclusion affecting transgender athletes across multiple sports.
