Darts star Deta Hedman has been praised by former world No 1 Dr Linda Duffy after refusing to play against a transgender opponent.
Hedman forfeited her quarter-final clash against Noa-Lynn van Leuven last weekend, saying she wasn't going to play 'against a man in a women's event'.
She has also previously said she won't be a 'nodding dog', with Hedman receiving widespread support in the time since.
Now, former darts star Dr Duffy has admitted Hedman made a choice that she 'shouldn't have to make'.
Deta Hedman has been praised after refusing to play against a trans opponent
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"Deta is just one of many sportswomen now, unfortunately, who are having to make that choice when it comes to playing against transgender participants," she told the Daily Mail.
"It's a choice, really, that women shouldn't have to make.
"I mean, there's categories in sport for a reason, and the reason being that males outperform females in most sports."
Dr Duffy then proceeded to criticise governing bodies, too, while making it clear transgender athletes shouldn't be held accountable for being allowed to compete.
She added: "So it's fair to have a category for females to participate in and I'm afraid the boundaries of that category are being eroded by governing bodies, really.
"I don't put any any sort of blame, if you like, if you want to use that word, on people who are transgender.
"I think it's the governing bodies that are just not being clear on what they're going to accept in these categories.'
She added: 'When you start to talk about these very contentious issues, the first thing people will say is: 'You're a bigot. You don't like transgender people.'
"It's not. We have to look aside from that. It's not about being transgender. It's not about that at all.
"It's about the fairness of the category.'
Dr Duffy is now an Associate Professor of Sports Psychology at the University of Middlesex.
She believes there are both scientific and categorical reasons that prove why transgender athletes shouldn't be allowed to compete in female-only events.
Having used darts as part of a study, she feels biological women are at a disadvantage when it comes to facing biological men.
"There are massive differences between males and females on cognitive abilities and visual-spatial ability," she said.
"You know lots of different ways that we do things. A lot of those are underpinned by testosterone levels. Some are not."
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Dr Duffy continued: "First of all you have to say. Do you think that a transgender person is a biological man or biologically female?
"That's the starting point for any of this and I can't really speak on individual cases, because I don't know their status.
"But if you accept that a transgender participant is a biological man - even though they identify as a woman - they have an advantage, an unfair advantage against females, therefore, shouldn't be playing in the female category.
"So you're looking at either inclusion or fairness. You can't have both."
Explaining her study further, she revealed: "I controlled variables including height, arm length, years of experience, the number of people that were playing worldwide and in the UK.
Deta Hedman has received widespread support after refusing to play against a transgender opponent
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"And I looked all those variables and the only one that came out as the biggest predictor of darts performance was gender. Or it was sex actually because they were categorized as male and female players.
"That was the biggest predictor. Even when all those other factors have been controlled for.
"In another part of my PhD I looked at how males and females practiced and I looked at county players, international players, professional players and club-level players.
"I looked at lots of different levels of skill. I looked at retrospective accounts of how many hours they practiced, how many leagues they played in. The type of practice they did.
"The male players outperformed females again, even though females did the same things in practice and took practice as seriously, [trained] the same amount of hours. And again, males outperform females by looking at the single dart average as a dependent measure. It's there for everyone to see. Males outperform females."
Hedman, meanwhile, has told GB News that she's 'fighting' for girls around the world - and has insisted people can't 'bury our heads in the sand' to avoid the issue.
“I am fighting for the girls out there that won’t have the opportunity”, she said.
“If we leave it and bury our heads in the sand, there won’t be anything for young women and young girls to aspire to.
“That’s one of the things that I feel strongly about because I’ve felt for young girls in the world championship.
“It has been two years now, if we continue allowing this to happen, who’s to say that young boys won’t decide to start playing with young girls.”
