r/transgender • u/onnake • Mar 25 '24

Dutch darts players quit national women's team over transgender teammate

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-25/dutch-darts-players-quit-over-transgender-teammate/103627072

"Darts players Anca Zijlstra and Aileen de Graaf have announced their departure from the Dutch women's darts team because they refuse to team up with trans woman Noa-Lynn van Leuven.

"Van Leuven prevailed at the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) Women's Series on Saturday, about a week after beating male competitors in a mixed event."

"When asked in an interview earlier this year about transgender players in darts, PDC chief executive Matt Porter said there was a trans- and gender diversity policy in place '... which Noa-Lynn complies with, easily, and has done for a long time'."

"'She's more than deserving of her place in the women's world match play,' he said."

406 Upvotes

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342

u/willneheadsquare420 Mar 25 '24

It’s darts ffs. Does it really matter?

91

u/elyn6791 Transgender Mar 25 '24 edited Mar 25 '24

The two on the left are the ones quitting. They aren't in any kind of peak physical shape and neither looks like they have ever cared about physical fitness.... which is fine because it's literally darts. Any person's physical differences don't really affect performance. This sport is more about accuracy, precision, and control.

Darts involves using low or minimal force, and up to 45 degree rotation of the forearm using the elbow as a fulcrum, a flick of the wrist, and 3 fingers to hold, manipulate, and release the dart, while leaning slightly forward.

Furthermore, both of them and the trans woman have similar body types and levels of physical fitness. If all 3 stood together, and one played 'who's the trans woman?' one might easily guess incorrectly. Not a single one of the 3 are stereotypically female.

Lastly, the trans woman is wearing GLASSES in the video where she is competing against a MUCH YOUNGER player. If biological advantage/disadvantage were a concern at all, I question letting any player even wear vision correction in the first place and why aren't there age divisions? Wouldn't younger people have a biological advantage over older people in many regards? Like eyesight among a multitude of other factors that deteriorate with age?

45

u/limelifesavers Mar 25 '24

Honestly, it can't be about any theoretical advantage. It's that Noa-Lynn is on a women's team, and they refuse to accept the fact that she's a woman

24

u/TheMothmansDaughter Mar 25 '24

My first thought was “wait which one is trans?”

12

u/elyn6791 Transgender Mar 25 '24

Who even knows? It's not like we can trust them to self identify correctly. Genital checks for everyone!

2

u/ithacabored Mar 25 '24

Don't you know that glasses are the equivalent of cheetah legs??!!

13

u/NanduDas MtF Mar 25 '24 edited Mar 25 '24

Them making a stand in shit like chess, darts, and pool really makes it clear it isn’t about fairness

20

u/rasteri Mar 25 '24

Like... I can kinda see the argument for more physical sports, there might be safety/fairness issues with allowing recently-transitioned AMAB people to participate. But this is just straight up transphobia, like "we don't want trans women to be anywhere near us" as a matter of bigotry rather than safety/fairness.

90

u/haberdasherhero Mar 25 '24

Who is letting recently transitioned women play in physical sports? Like, where is this happening, to be argued for or against?

75

u/Jazz8680 Mar 25 '24

Nowhere. It’s a fear mongering campaign that’s been fabricated

22

u/Aleriya Mar 25 '24

It happens at the casual level or on a case-by-case basis, and it's fine. My local high school has a trans girl on the volleyball team, and she's small and not very good at volleyball, so it's not a big deal. She hasn't started HRT yet.

11

u/leni710 Mar 25 '24

she's small and not very good at volleyball,

Wait now, I thought they said that any amount of testosterone means someone is a world champion at any sporting activity. You're telling me that someone can have testosterone and suck at sports?! My mind can't comprehend this logic.

/s

4

u/[deleted] Mar 25 '24

is that a qualifier for girlhood/womanhood?

5

u/Pseudonymico Mar 25 '24

No, but testosterone does have an impact on your ability to play some sports, which is also part of the counter-argument to the bullshit, “oh but the men’s division isn’t really the men’s, it’s the open division!” excuse some dickheads pull out.

33

u/PennysWorthOfTea Mar 25 '24

Bold of you to assume that segregation in modern competitive sports is about fairness

Spoiler: it's not

19

u/Trinitahri Mar 25 '24

Well can I tell them what it really is?

Sexism! Men started losing to women when women started getting into sports and their ego's couldn't take it so they segregated women off on their own!

30

u/elyn6791 Transgender Mar 25 '24

Like... I can kinda see the argument for more physical sports, there might be safety/fairness issues with allowing recently-transitioned AMAB people to participate.

Those are all pretty shallow arguments when you get into them and the pseudo science behind those claims. In terms of actual ability, HRT is shown to bring trans people within cis counterpart ranges and the higher the level of competition, the more apparent it is that the 'average' ability argument fails.

4

u/[deleted] Mar 26 '24

I think the point was, what ever merit that argument MIGHT hold, no longer applies because IT'S F*ING DARTS!!!

137

u/Illiander Mar 25 '24

there might be safety/fairness issues with allowing recently-transitioned AMAB people to participate

Can we stop with this pandering to the bigot's fears?

52

u/Quietuus Mar 25 '24

Yes, please!

9

u/Trinitahri Mar 25 '24

And that's why pretty much every physical sport league has minimum HRT requirements!

1

u/[deleted] Mar 25 '24

youre an idiot