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Noa-Lynn van Leuven has revealed her ban from the Women's Series has reopened painful childhood wounds, but maintains she is "not done" with darts. The history-making player is no longer permitted to compete following amendments by the Darts Regulation Authority (DRA) earlier this month, which now stipulate that transgender women cannot participate in women's events.

The regulations were altered after the governing body conducted a review of its policy last year, commissioning a report from academic developmental biologist Dr Emma Hilton, whose findings determined that "multiple, small-magnitude sex differences accumulate to generate male advantage over females in darts".

Van Leuven says it "changed everything" for her, and the decision was communicated without warning via email a day before becoming public knowledge.

"It brings up childhood memories of people not accepting me for who I am or what I am," the 29-year-old from the Netherlands told the Press Association.

"It happened in middle school. It happened at kindergarten. It happened. And it's just something that keeps coming back.

"It's been a rough couple of weeks. I'm not going to tell you it wasn't, but I guess every year has been like this.

"Every year something happens, and every time I crawl out of the big hole I get pushed in, I keep coming back.

"This one really sucks. And I truly still don't get it. I just don't believe darts really is a 'gender-affected sport' as they call it, especially with the points that they're coming up with.

"It feels like the decision is influenced by gender-critical perspectives, which I strongly disagree with.

"If you're a biological male, you should have advantages in being taller, having longer arms, whatever. But take a look at who has been taking every title in this game? Phil Taylor, (Luke) Littler now. Neither of them is above 180cm.

"So, I just don't get it. It changed everything for me, and I found out about it without any real warning, which made it even harder to process."

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Her argument that men lack a physical advantage gained further credibility when Beau Greaves won a Pro Tour event last month in Milton Keynes, becoming the first woman to claim a PDC Tour ranking title.

Van Leuven is keen not to politicise the triumph and insists her fellow competitor deserves to savour her "amazing" achievement.

She has played alongside Greaves on the Women's Series since 2022, which has paved the way for her to make history as the first transgender player to qualify for the World Championship and the Grand Slam of Darts.

Without a main PDC Tour card, she is now limited to second-tier Challenge Tour events or World Darts Federation competitions.

The PDC, which oversees the tournaments, is bound by the DRA's rules and has offered Van Leuven counselling following the change.

"I just want to try to enjoy the game again," she added. "I just want to improve myself this year and maybe hope I get a Tour card for next year.

"Hopefully, I can still find enough opportunities to do that.

"I'm not done with this game, but it still hurts, and all my goals for this whole year, they're gone, and there's not a lot of time left to get new big goals."

Van Leuven believes the decision reflects the broader treatment of the transgender community.

"I'm not sure if it would actually help to fight it," she said. "You've got the court ruling on trans women not being women in the UK.

"If you take a look at America, trans rights are kind of gone everywhere, and it's only getting worse and worse. It's not easy to fight this at this moment.

"It's not only happening in sports, but also take women's restrooms.

"I don't know any trans woman who actually transitioned just to go to the women's room. They just want to be themselves.

"They just want to live their own lives. They're not scary, they're not angry human beings.

"I hear a lot of people talking really bad about trans people, like they're not even human beings, like they're some sort of object. But yeah, we're human beings. We also have feelings."