Transgender snooker player Jamie Hunter criticised after winning US Women's Snooker Open
- Published
Jamie Hunter in action during the US Women's Snooker Open in Seattle
Transgender snooker player Jamie Hunter says winning the US Women's Snooker Open was "clouded" by critical messages she received online following the victory.
Hunter, 25, won the event in August after beating fellow Briton Rebecca Kenna 4-1 in the final.
Winning the tournament secured Hunter a first world ranking title.
"I haven't got to celebrate it as much as I thought I would," said Hunter, who came out as transgender in 2019.
Speaking to BBC World Service, Hunter said: "It's been tough reading some of the things that people have said online. It has been a bit clouded by everything that's gone on.
"The hardest bit was seeing how upset it made my parents. I met them at the train station after they picked us up when we got home and it wasn't celebrating and cheering and smiling.
"Obviously it kicks off the big debate that's rife now in the world about trans people in sport."
Since the tournament ended former world number one Maria Catalano called for transgender players to be banned from women's tournaments.
"I don't feel that women's voices have been heard and it has been really playing on my mind," Catalano, 40, said in an interview with The Sportsman, external. "Snooker for women has always been tough. We have fought so hard for our rights in the past.
"There is a reason why they started a women's tour. [Current world number one] Reanne Evans... is the best woman player I have seen and even she can't crack it in the men's - it just hasn't happened.
"So I think over a long time it has been proven that women can't compete with the men in snooker. I have asked myself the question as to why that is most of my life. But it is there as a fact, in black and white, right from the 1980s.
"The main tour is open to both, and nobody is stopping Jamie doing that."
Hunter insists, however, that she does not have an advantage.
"I've seen people who are saying 'women can't compete with the men' but there's four women professionals on the men's tour who've been winning matches this season so obviously women can compete with the men," she told the BBC World Service.
"The people that are disagreeing with me personally, of me participating in snooker, some of the arguments are just based off the fact that they think I've got an advantage.
"I think different sports, it's a different argument... football, rugby, fighting sports, it's a completely different debate."
In recent months several governing bodies have taken the decision to ban transgender women from female sports, including the Rugby Football Union and swimming governing body Fina.
But Jason Ferguson, the chairman of snooker's governing body the WPBSA, insists the sport differs from those that place more emphasis on stamina, endurance, power or contact.
Snooker has a transgender policy that specifies testosterone levels for female players - which Hunter says her levels are under - as well as other regulations.
Ferguson said:, external "We are not a physical sport as such. We are classed as a precision sport by the IOC, which we are. And we are therefore not too dissimilar from archery or shooting and those kind of sports, even if stamina might at some point be relevant.
"But there is nothing that tells us that women cannot compete to the same level in snooker as a man on any physical grounds. We are open and mixed-gender, with now women on the main tour. And in many senses that makes us quite unique.
"We have taken sufficient medical advice to be very satisfied that our policy is right for the current climate."
Catalano nevertheless believes snooker should adopt the same rules as the likes of swimming and rugby.
"I have no problem with transgender people. It is their body and their lives, and they are at liberty to do what they want. This is only about how it affects other women in top-level sport and competition," she said. "It is causing conflict in our sport as it has in others.
"I would say 90% of the players on the women's tour don't agree with this being allowed to happen, from my conversations. I do believe 100% there is an advantage there even in snooker after transition, and so I would like to see the rules tightened up."
Despite her US Open experience, Hunter hopes to continue raising awareness, adding: "We just want to exist, whether it's sport or not.
"Whether they just say, 'I've seen somebody else like me on the TV - that means that I don't have to hide away', if I could do that even for just one person, that would just be amazing."