Bullseye - England Darts - Women's Darts is for female born competitors

[fromorbit]

Great to see England Darts take a stand for women's sports and actually to listen to the players.The statement is a bit clunky in places, but the intention in backing women is clear. Football and Cricket take note. Pool read the writing on the wall.

Statement!!! April 18

England Darts has canvassed its players and executives in this very important issue concerning the future of Women’s darts, and how England can continue to protect the integrity within our sport for its female members.

We are mindful that it this has become very derisive issue, and one we would never have thought would be an issue some 50 years ago, when we set up our systems of competition.

England as the national organisation within the World Darts Federation, have a duty to decide how to continue to promote and compete in events which are in the best interests of our members, in this case our women.

To compete and associate ourselves in events with non birth gender females in Womens events would be seen as accepting this situation, along with sending a message out that we are condoning and contributing to a situation which will ultimately result in the demise of our Women’s sport, a sport many people across our sport, have invested a tremendous amount of time and effort for many years in securing the right of Women to have their own championships where they compete on a level playing field with their fellow female born competitors

This decision has not been made hastily, and whilst certain International Championships may be affected by this decision, depending upon the views of others, nothing has ever been achieved without possible sacrifice, and England Darts are fully supportive of our Women and urge everyone within England Darts and fellow International Organisations/Associations to support Women’s Darts.

We will not be drawn into being judgemental about any person’s life style choices, that is entirely their own choices, and is nothing to do with England Darts, neither will we be drawn into any abuse of any individuals, this decision is to protect the integrity of Woman’s Darts as a sport in its own right.

On Behalf of England Darts
Tommy Thompson.
^englanddarts.co.uk/^

🎯 👏 ❤️ interpretive💃 🕺

That is a much stronger and braver statement than many other governing bodies have produced. Refreshingly unequivocal and focuses on the core issue - fairness to women competitors. Well done, England Darts.

Yes this. Noone else has so plainly said that that twam and that allowing them into the women's sport will mean losing that category. Bravo!

I very much like the statement, but I'm saddened that we've got this far than even an organisation that wants to clearly knock this on the head still has difficulty with the language because the language has become so corrupted.
e.g. "non birth gender females"
The word gender shouldn't be near the word female. Female is a sex not a gender.
Non females are males, just use the word male. Or "born male" to head off the GRCs.
No males in female sports.
Make an open category if needs be.

Good for them.

Who's coming down the pub for a quick game of arrows? I'll get the first round in.

Well done England Darts.

Agreed. However even with messing up the language we still get the win.

Reading the statement you get a sense of frustration and bafflement probably from guys who are basically sound, loved the idea of getting more women playing the sport they love, probably having to argue with other blokes who don't like it, and have been working to improve things, but are now having to deal with gender stuff which most people are confused by.

The fact they came down on the right side comes down to the fact they just listened to women players and saw fairness to them as important. Simple basic concepts. Yet so many people couldn't manage them.

"We are mindful that it this has become very derisive issue"

Bless, lots of people think it's a divisive issue in that it creates division. I agree that it's a derisive issue in that it invites derision..

But other than that, great statement. Well done and thank you, England Darts.

There is a trans-identified male from NZ? playing in the higher levels so there might be impacts.

Well, this is powerful, isn't it?

To compete and associate ourselves in events with non birth gender females in Womens events would be seen as accepting this situation, along with sending a message out that we are condoning and contributing to a situation which will ultimately result in the demise of our Women’s sport, a sport many people across our sport, have invested a tremendous amount of time and effort for many years in securing the right of Women to have their own championships where they compete on a level playing field with their fellow female born competitors

I think that "non birth gender females" is probably simply an attempt to be diplomatic, so as to avoid any realistic chance of accusations of transphobia.

There's also:

https://www.express.co.uk/sport/othersport/1890879/darts-transgender-Noa-Lynn-van-Leuven-title

Yes @ZeldaFighter and it’s been very much noticed that whenever the PDC tweet about Noa Lyn that turn off replies - they are literally the only player they do that with. It’ll be interesting to see their reaction to England darts

double post

Good. I used to be captain of our ladies darts team at my all female college. We had to put up with expectations from other college teams (almost exclusively male) that we were a joke team and would be easy to beat.

To get more female players you need female competitions.

(Ditto chess)

Wonderful news!

That is a great statement.

Excellent, we need more like that.