Emotional statement time

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Ophelia Benson

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Drop everything and pay attention!

Trans darts star releases emotional statement after being banned from playing against women

Let me guess – the “trans darts star” in question is actually a male darts star who pretends to be a woman? And he’s “emotional” because he’s not being allowed to play against women? It’s so interesting how even right-wing journalists carefully avoid clarity on this subject.

Dutch darts professional Noa-Lynn van Leuven has addressed the World Darts Federation’s new regulations that ban transgender women from female competitions.

Seeing as how transgender women are men, of course they should be banned from women’s competitions. Duh.

Earlier this week, the WDF decided to take action to prevent biological men from facing biological women.

But Van Leuven has been left disappointed, with the 28-year-old lamenting the ban and taking aim at officials.

Too bad, cheater. Lament and take aim all you want; you’re still a cheater.

“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.”

Blither blither blither. Define “inclusion.” Explain why “inclusion” means including men in women’s sports but not, say, including gorillas in male sports. Explain how we can truly consider the people behind the labels such that it becomes reasonable and fair to allow some men to compete against women. Take a break from throwing around the stale buzzwords and actually explain how this works.

“My heart goes out to all the athletes impacted by this. We remain visible. We keep going.”

Oh you remain visible all right. One way or another, you get on camera.

Comments

12 responses to “Emotional statement time”

  1. Omar Avatar
    Omar

    “…It’s disheartening to see yet another policy framed around ‘fairness’ that ultimately results in exclusion, without truly considering the people behind the labels.”

    Well, hearten up, mate. ‘Fairness’ always involves exclusion of someone or something. Males are excluded from female sports for reasons having to do with sexual dimorphism; different musculature, etc. Your decision to go around dressed up as a woman cannot hide that reality, or the advantage it would confer if you were admitted to compete anywhere as a woman.

    Maybe you could persuade the organisers of some kids’ athletic carnival to let you compete in that. It would likely work as long as none of them have their crap detectors switched on.

  2. maddog1129 Avatar
    maddog1129

    He can be visible all he wants, competing in the men’s division.

    Define “inclusion.” Explain why “inclusion” means including men in women’s sports but not, say, including gorillas men-who-cosplay-as women in male sports.

  3. Papito Avatar
    Papito

    “My heart goes out to all the athletes impacted by this. We remain visible. We keep going.”

    Don’t worry about visibility. You stick out like a sore thumb, fella.

    A particularly screwy thing about this dude is that he plays in men’s competitions too, and wins them.

    https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/dutch-trans-darts-noa-lynn-van-leuvensparks-outrage-win-pdc-titles/

    Nobody is stopping him from playing darts, or from winning at darts. He can dress however he likes, wear lipstick, call himself The Duchess, and play darts with men.

  4. iknklast Avatar
    iknklast

    I think journalists should be careful about using terms like ‘take aim’ when talking about a darts champion.

    And, once again, no one mentions that ‘inclusion’ of men in women’s sports will almost certainly exclude some, maybe eventually most, women.

  5. Athel Cornish-Bowden Avatar
    Athel Cornish-Bowden

    Sane people, if they haven’t joined the trans cult, can agree that men have a natural advantage in sports where strength is important, but I don’t feel that darts is such a sport: is it? Is physical strength any more important in darts than it is, say, in chess?

  6. Ophelia Benson Avatar
    Ophelia Benson

    There is a gap between male and female performance.

  7. Rob Avatar
    Rob

    Athel, I think I might have expressed that view a while back when this came up previously. I recall someone putting me straight.

  8. Sackbut Avatar
    Sackbut

    Even if there were no gap, the competition is still single-sex. Honors for female writers and entrepreneurs don’t claim a skill gap. Why exclude (other) men from the women’s competition just because they don’t claim to be women?

  9. Rob Avatar
    Rob

    I couldn’t find the discussion I thought I remembered, but here’s a comment from Acolyte of Sagan.

    https://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2024/a-wave-of-abyooos-and-exclooosion/#comment-3043897

    I also found this link.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/darts/article-13400039/Former-world-No-1-sports-psychology-expert-reveals-scientifically-UNFAIR-transgender-darts-players-compete-female-events-Deta-Hedman-Denmark-Open-withdrawal.html

    And for those interested, Duffy’s Thesis.

    https://repository.mdx.ac.uk/item/840vq

  10. Acolyte of Sagan Avatar
    Acolyte of Sagan

    Rob, that might have been my comment here: https://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2024/a-wave-of-abyooos-and-exclooosion/

    In professional darts the regulation board height and oche (throwing line) distance is the same for both sexes; the centre of the bull’s-eye is 5’8″ from the floor – putting the highest-scoring section, the treble-twenty, at 6′ – and from the floor directly below the front of the board to the oche is 7’9″. This already means that on-average shorter women have to literally aim higher to attain higher scores than do on-average taller men, and hitting higher targets is harder than hitting lower ones.

    On top of that it is clearly advantageous to be as close to the board as possible before releasing the dart. That’s why players stand not facing the board full on but sideways, with the leading foot parallel to and touching the oche and with the body leant towards the board as far as possible while still retaining balance. This stance clearly puts the throwing hand of a taller, longer-armed male player closer to the target at the point of releasing the dart than it does a shorter-armed, less-tall woman.

    Then there’s physical strength. Gravity affects a dart’s trajectory even over so short a distance, so the harder a player can throw the dart the faster and therefore straighter it will fly. A stronger player can therefore aim more directly at the target whereas a less-strong player will have to aim above the target to allow for a more parabolic trajectory – a much harder shot, in other words. And that is why an on-average shorter and less-strong woman, who not only has to aim upwards because of her height, but has to aim even higher to account for the more arching trajectory necessitated by her arm strength, is at a disadvantage against an on-average taller and/or stronger man whose comparative aim will be lower and whose darts will trace a more direct trajectory.

  11. Ophelia Benson Avatar
    Ophelia Benson

    For avoidance of confusion: Rob’s comment #9 was held because of links, so AoS hadn’t seen it when composing #10.

  12. Rob Avatar
    Rob

    Thanks Ophelia. AoS, I suspect you’re right but my brain is so foggy at the moment I’m just not sure.

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