Deta Hedman, an icon of women’s darts, has continued her public campaign against transgender players in women’s darts with a lengthy social media post on Wednesday evening.
Deta Hedman has long been an ambassador for women’s darts alongside fellow legend of the game, Trina Gulliver.
Hedman has been competing in darts for close to four decades now, since making her BDO debut in 1987 and the 64 year old has the most titles/accolades of any female darts player.
she made headlines a few months ago though not for her performances at the oche but rather her actions and comments away from it…
In May, Deta Hedman withdrew from the Denmark Open (to which she was in the quarter-finals) as she refused to play against her transgender opponent Noa-Lynn van Leuven.
This sparked mass debate within the darts community and brought some unwanted attention to Hedman at the time.
Now, following Noa-Lynn’s participation in the Women’s World Matchplay last weekend, Hedman has again made headlines by posting a lengthy argument to her Facebook page against transgender competitors in women’s darts.
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Deta Hedman States You CANNOT Have Both ‘Inclusivity’ and ‘Fairness’ in Women’s Sports
On Wednesday evening, Deta Hedman took to Facebook to air her frustrations and continue her public campaign against transgender competitors in women’s darts (and sports in general).
The below is her post in full:
“See photos attached from the men’s and ladies Matchplay, constantly we are being told no reason why men and ladies can’t play at the same level.
“Chizzy had the lowest average of the 32 men with an 85.76 Ave, 5 men had 100+ tournament Ave 23 had a 90+ , and 4 had Ave of 85-89.
“In ladies only Beau beat Chizzys Ave, and Mikuru only one to have an 80+ running Ave. The range of the 8 ladies in the event was 63.25 to 88.53, the men’s was 85.76-102.04. Ladies running aves difference from top to bottom based on 8 ladies was 25.28, the men’s from top 102.04 to 32nd was 16.28.
“Take this further where a study of monthly county awards shows the men having a far greater winning aves, in fact in that 24 year study of BICC aves Trina Gullivers record Ave of 104.85 was beaten by 95 different men in the men’s monthly awards.
“These are counties that in that period had ladies like Beau Greaves, Fallon Sherrock, Lisa Ashton, Linda Duffy, Anastasia, Lorraine Winstanley, Manby Solomans, Vicky Pruim, Sharon Colclogh and many other great names playing in counties.
“Dr Linda Duffy has shown studies that back up the science that men have over women in darts, including Shoulder and elbow formations that are different in men who have been through puberty.
“My partner Paul has also seen a study of member counties of England and their Gold personal members aves and that shows a staggering 31% higher Ave on the men to women over a period of Jan 2024- June 2024.
“I attended a presentation night in Rochester Saturday and had a Q&A session, after a slow start the questions flooded in, I answered openly and honestly, and for the people that were there the Trans issue was brought up, I spoke from the heart and I have no issues with Trans but they should play in an open section imo.
“I questioned why is it that the rule makers in IOC, WDF and DRA are predominantly men, they totally disregard the many and varied problems unique to women, menstrual, perimenopause, menopause, fibroids, Endometriosis, with symptoms varying from stomach cramps, brain fog, bleeding, headaches/ migraine, hot intense flushes etc.
“All these problems are ignored, and considered that they don’t affect your performance in a precision sport like darts.
“Add to that the ridiculous testosterone levels set for a trans to play in Women’s darts! If they achieve a level of 9.99mnol/L they can play, the normal range of women is Between 0.5 – 2.4 mnol/L, I myself have tested at 1.2.
“To make this even more ridiculous 5 African women born with vaginas but had varied organs including inner testicles were banned from sport as their testosterone levels were too high, they were told they had to reduce their levels not to 10mnol/L (the level a trans can compete in sport) but to 5mnol/L, so athletes born as a woman to compete had to be half the level of a biological male who would compete in women’s sports.
“I have received both plaudits for my stance on trans and a lot of hostility.
“All I want is for the integrity of women’s sports to remain, we have been fighting since the 80’s to get ladies darts better recognition, all I want is to compete in darts on a fair and level playing field.
“As has been stated by many studies around the world you can have inclusivity in women’s sport or you can have fairness in Women’s sports! YOU CANNOT HAVE BOTH.
“Why don’t the WDF and DRA as a compromise drop the testosterone limit to the above high end of Women and set it as 3mnol/L, they would still have the skeletal advantages of going through puberty as a Male but at least their levels would be at a similar level to some of the women.
“#stats=facts”
There’s a lot to unpack with this lengthy post.
Hedman covers biological factors and hormones, highlights the difference in averages from recent competitions and even cites studies around gender performance in darts.
It’s important to highlight that Hedman states she has no issue with transgender individuals, only that she feels they should play in the open competitions/division only and not the women’s specifically.
A few months ago she took a televised interview to cover this topic:
It’s been a week full of big news for the women’s game!
We just yesterday covered Beau Greaves after her claims that a woman will never win the World Championship [open division] as men are “a lot more consistent”.
See the full story for that here – Beau Greaves wants more ‘gender separate’ tournaments in darts
What do you think regarding Deta’s comments, views and approach? It’s a sensitive subject for sure so let us know in the comments below what you think 👇