Jamie Hunter came out as transgender in 2019 and became the first transgender snooker player to win a women's tour ranking event last month when she defeated Rebecca Kenna 4-1 to win the US Women's Open.
Since her victory, Hunter has been subjected to horrific online abuse and there have been calls for transgender players to be banned from women's snooker, with former world number one Maria Catalano saying: "As a man Jamie never really did anything. And if this is allowed and becomes more common, there is no future for women's snooker.
"I don't want to see the end of women's sport, it has been too hushed up, and only now Jamie has won an event has it gone big. I would totally change the rules, and bring ours into line with some of those other sports that have banned transgender athletes from competing in women's sport. "
In an interview with the Metro, Hunter responded to criticism of her involvement in women's snooker, saying: "If I didn't transition when I did, my parents wouldn't have been picking me up from the airport the other day, they'd have been putting flowers on my headstone. That's how bad it was.
"I don't think people realise I was a couple of months away from committing suicide. They make out as if I played snooker as a man, I was rubbish, so decided to do it in the women's instead.
"I changed my gender for my wellbeing and my life, not for anything else. If I didn't transition when I did, I would be dead. But if someone else was in my position now, receiving all this abuse, that might send them over the edge.
"Being alive and being transgender is difficult enough, just to go out shopping. For me to put myself in the position to be in the public eye is even harder.
"For months in the past I was scared to go outside. I'm quite thick-skinned. It has upset me and I've done a lot of crying, but that's it.
"Someone else, it could have spelled the end. The trans suicide rate is ridiculously high. Get one of those people, add 5,000 hate messages in 24 hours and their odds of surviving aren't good."
