With these new rules, FIDE has managed to
- Imply the mental inferiority of women
- Validate the existence of transgender men
- Destroy the integrity of awards record-keeping
- Call transgender women men
Very nice, FIDE, incredible mental gymnastics performance! 👏 Add them to the ever lengthening sports federation shitlist.
What a weird way to go about it. Knowing a small amount about chess ratings the loss or changing of title does in some ways make sense though in the way that the bar for a woman to be considered GM is lower than a man. So effectively you would have a title that may have a rating requirement higher than your pre-transition rating. I get that part…. But the rest?
These are weird rules that really don’t need to be there and I hope too GMs speak out against this in both the male and female sections. There has been quite a bit of drama in the chess community in recent years over what is essentially gender discrimination. So another stain on chess with this one.
Editing to add: the differing rating requirements in an intellectual game are very strange to begin with. There are many women who meet the requirements of being a GM(male) rather than a WGM and they’re a significantly smaller portion of the overall chess players
Haha what a joke, do they think anyone will take them seriously after this? Who’s running FIDE, Putin?!
Alas I have no interest in chess myself, but if I did, I’d stay far, far away from bigots and fascists like this lot have revealed themselves to be.
Someone tell me why there is even a “womens chess” for them to insanely bar trans people from, gender doesn’t affect chess in the 1st place.
I’m waiting to hear a reason that doesnt go back to some tired stereotype in the lines of “Men are smarter than women, so its not fair”.
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Maybe the amazing women chess players just have better things to do
That was interesting. Thanks for posting.
Historically, women did not feel welcome at open chess tournaments. Chess talent was seen as synonymous with intellectual brilliance, so some men would not take it well when they were beat by a woman. I like to think that this has changed, but there’s probably still an element of this. Regardless, women’s tournaments were set up so that women who wanted to play chess competitively would have an opportunity to do so safely and without the fear of harassment. They still exist because people still compete in them and enjoy them, so why stop?
Thank you.
In case you don’t know - there are two categories: open and women-only. Anyone can compete in open, no matter what their gender/sex is. Women can also compete against other women only if they want. It’s definitely not like “oh you’re a woman, you can’t compete here, it’s only for men”.
But let me call myself a women so i can stop being 10th place and take 1st in women league
It’s fucking chess, a game of the mind. What possible relevance could being transgender have to a game of chess?
CHESS?!
When did sexuality mattered in a game of chess? Like do trans people get a buff at thinking or something?
The king also is a queen so that’s not fair
Men automatically get a +10 masculity buff. It’s widely considered an overpowred stat in chess.
Stroking your beard also gives a +2 intelligence boost
The men can only move 1 square in any direction, while women can move anywhere on their row/column/diagonal. Clearly this biological difference is why they have separate men’s and women’s chess tournaments. Also, I hear trans people can double jump.
Damm double-jumping trannies coming to take my fish.
women can move anywhere on their row/column/diagonal
Not all of them. Pawns are women, too, because they can be promoted to queens but not to kings. They can also be promoted to bishops, which means that women are accepted into clergy by chess’ church.
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Chess has long had different leagues for men and women
Yeah, but that doesn’t make it right.
Never said it did. I’m answering your question. When did sexuality matter in game like chess? A very long time, because misogyny.
I agree you never said it did. You just stated what has been happening.
Yikes… That’s fucking gross.
Hopefully there’s some kind of backlash from chess players and community figures, this is absolutely vile.Honestly lately I’m kinda just losing hope in humanity, and wondering if LGBT folks will ever be accepted in society. Seeing what little progress we acquired over the past century or so be undone so easily is crushing.
Fuck FIDE, fuck Russia, and fuck all the ignorant, hateful bigots that keep fighting against people’s very right to exist.
IDK why you’re singling out Russia. I doubt the president has dictatorial control over this, and the council has members from all over the world. The whole org seems to be captured by reactionaries. Did the Russian chess federation spearhead this or something?
This shit doesn’t even make sense. It’s God damn chess! Men and women don’t have different minds. You might have a case with physical sports, maybe (IDK anymore; used to think women were not able to be as physical strong as men due to physiology, but even that seems like it is inaccurate with new studies), but there is no such case to be made with a mind. Human brains are human brains. The body they are encased in doesn’t change them fundamentally.
I’m pretty sure it’s just that greater male variability In most traits means that extreme upper echelon of men are better than the extreme upper echelon of women.
Men and women don’t have different minds.
Chess stats don’t agree with you on that. Men have a greater spread of chess ability than women. ie. the bottom end of men are significantly worse than the bottom end of women but also the top skilled men are better than the top women.
Girls are made to feel unwelcome in chess environments at a very young age. Of course once many drop out because of cultural pressure, the remaining small sample size will have less spread than the larger population of men who have been made welcome in chess environments their whole lives.
Maybe if they played together instead of separately things would change, considering how it is played and what the logic employed entails. You might not know how to deal with en passant if you’ve never seen it used.
The measured pool is chess players, not random people they picked off the street.
The standard chess competition is “open” so they do play together.
You might have a case with physical sports, maybe (IDK anymore; used to think women were not able to be as physical strong as men due to physiology, but even that seems like it is inaccurate with new studies),
I feel like the fact that the top leagues in most sports are open to both genders but it’s basically unheard of for females to be even close to be good enough to join, proves there is a massive difference at those levels.
For example women can play in the NBA, some have tried, only one or two got close, but none have played a game.
What research are you referring to that says there is no advantage?
There are too many women in chess after the popularity of the queen gambit, said FIDE. What can we do or say to get them go away?
Really, what is the nationality of the FIDE leadership? Are they Russia? I remember a lot of famous Russians playing.
Yes the current leader is a generic russian politician/stooge, but the previous leader was a real firecracker! He claimed to have been abducted by aliens and to have visited their planet https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirsan_Ilyumzhinov
FIDE banned Russians though
I really wish posts like this included more interesting discussion, instead of 90 % of people just white knighting how shocked they are and how awful this is!
Yea we get it after the first comment, you don’t need to post the same shit over and over.
My personal genuine question is to women, how they feel about transgender women in their sports? For physical sports I’d imagine it matters even more.
Chess is just a brain game so it really shouldn’t matter at all, but I’d still love to womens opinion on the subject.
“Discussion” about this is just transphobic concern trolling, so it’s not necessary.
Your closed mindedness–besides being off-putting and ignorant-- makes more enemies than friends. You’ll never get what you want in real life by pouting. You might want to consider actually fighting for your cause instead of just declaring it because you’re too lazy to think critically anymore.
Woman here, and genuinely, I don’t know what’s right.
I can recognise that m>f after puberty gives someone a strength advantage but at the same time it’s hard enough having to transition without feeling even more marginalised by being banned from sports.
Maybe there needs to be just a women’s and open category to recognise the strength handicap that cis women have for certain activities and allow anyone to compete in open, but then there’s the challenge of prize money, viewers etc etc between the two that also needs to be managed appropriately.
At the end of the day, someone isn’t going to be happy and for that there is no good solution, but we need to be doing our best for cis and trans athletes to make sure everyone has a chance to compete in the sports they live.
Chess? Banning trans competitors is fucking idiotic and the chess federation can fuck right off with that implied notion of women being less capable.
The solution is easy, just open more categories ciswomen, transwomen and anyone who identifies with the female gender. Same for men. Done.
Not enough people to make a meaningful category tho
Point is more categories are required now. Leave cis women as category then make other categories like open for all, trans people, people that identifies with the female gender, etc. Sure some categories might not have many competitors, but this way eveyone can play in the categories they feel comfortable.
The problem is that the way sports is funded is through competition and you can’t have competition without competitors. Small categories are inefficient and will be removed as a business decision. Also it’s kind of meaningless to say “I’m the best in X category” when there are 3 people in that category.
Hang on a sec…
I can recognise that m>f after puberty gives someone a strength advantage
This is the sort of thing that is said in these conversations, as if it is simply fact. A common sense truth that we all agree on.
But it’s not. Transgender women might retain some advantage after transition, but they also might not. That is something that is intensely studied, and hotly debated. Results have been found to support either hypothesis, and may differ from sport to sport. It’s not cut-and-dry in the slightest.
Even if it’s not simply fact, you have to take into account people who want to abuse the system.
I’m male. How much do I have to change to be considered female?
After getting X amount of estrogen?
In things like running or swimming, breasts are a complete disadvantage. Am I required to get a certain cup size?
I could be decent in Tennis as a male. But if I started playing females tomorrow I’d be one of the best. Just how the sport works. No amount of training is going to get a female to serve and return the ball as hard as I can (Which isn’t even top male speed).
How many days from today until I can play females?
What if I didn’t want to subject my body to hormones just to be considered the gender I feel like I already am? That should be my choice.
You’re basically saying that I need to do enough “damage” to my body to be considered female.
Pretty much every sport is going to set some reasonable limits, based on the level of competition. Most are based on maintaining a certain hormone balance, including low testosterone, for at least 1-2 years.
So most of your hypotheticals just cannot happen. And moreover, they just aren’t relevant to the arguments people are making. A transgender woman is a woman, regardless of if she transitions medically, or how far along she is. But for certain types and levels of competitions, some restrictions are implemented. Most people are arguing against a) a blanket ban, which seems more fueled by bigotry than data, b) a ban from levels of competition that are more socially-oriented than meaningfully competitive, such as school sports, or c) bans like this one, in chess.
I’m male. How much do I have to change to be considered female?
The standard in many sports is… documented use of testosterone blockers for 2 consecutive years, and a testosterone test showing T levels lower than some number that is clearly within the natural ranges.
If you dig into the sports involved, they generally all have run studies. There is a point where any advantage of being born male becomes negligible. It’s not (just) about identifying as the destination gender. It’s about showing zero or limited advantage in the league.
Ironically, it looks like the bigger issue is with trans men, who tend to somewhat outperform cis men in certain base tests of strength despite having compatible testosterone levels.
As for breasts in swimming. You understand that it is not against the rules in competitive swimming for a cis woman to get a breast reduction, right? If Cis women have no requirements or limitations on that, why should trans women?
What if I didn’t want to subject my body to hormones just to be considered the gender I feel like I already am? That should be my choice.
Then don’t compete in the destination gender’s circuit? Turning gendered sports into hormone-matched gendered sports is an entirely reasonable compromise because you’re defending the competitive integrity without being bigoted against a person.
A trans individual is not welcome in their birth gender sport because they resemble (hormonally) the other gender. It seems contrived to defend exclusionary behavior on “what if I want to do what would include me in the other category”.
I think I read in a study somewhere that after transition, a trans female retains a certain amount of muscle mass and strength for a minimum of 2 years after transitioning. I’ll try to find the study and link it when I’m on the computer.
That said, there is absolutely nuance to be had here, and the chess organization is being both transphobic and sexist at this point 😮💨
I think I read in a study somewhere that after transition, a trans female retains a certain amount of muscle mass and strength for a minimum of 2 years after transitioning. I’ll try to find the study and link it when I’m on the computer.
That’s why I said that the evidence is highly mixed. I’ve seen multiple studies that conclude that there is no reason to believe trans women retain advantage, but I also don’t doubt that you have seen the results you say you have either.
Then it gets even more complicated with, what kind of strength are we talking about? And for what sport? There are even arguments made that increased bone size and density, paired with female-range muscle strength that trans women at least approach if not reach after a few years of transition, may represent a net disadvantage for transgender women.
I just wanted to call out the one of the incorrect assumptions that even well-meaning folks make when talking about transgender people. Because they’re really quite common unfortunately.
That said, there is absolutely nuance to be had here, and the chess organization is being both transphobic and sexist at this point 😮💨
100%.
I’d like to interject that it’s not necessarily the evidence that mixed, but its interpretation. The same data can be taken two different ways.
I just finished reading a link (wish I kept the url) that argued trans woman runners still outperform cis women by 12% after 2 years of hormones, pointing out the competitive requirements are only 1 year of hormones. Only in the subtleties do you find that their metrics for performance did not just involve running speed (but included push-ups), and that the underlying research admitted in conclusions that they were likely over-rating the trans women’s competitiveness…
One of the things that I read somewhere that REALLY stuck with me is this. There will always be an "evidence-based "argument to attack trans atheletes so long as there is at least one trans athelete that is outperforming cis atheletes. If trans women are equivalent to cis women, then the real answer is that it should be even (weighted obviously) odds that the best in the world would be trans or cis… but what we seek to validate “fairness” is that no trans athelete ever actually rises to the top. Because if they do, it must have been their gender advantage.
I’d like to interject that it’s not necessarily the evidence that mixed, but its interpretation. The same data can be taken two different ways.
I mean yes and no, some studies don’t find evidence of competitive advantage. Some do. So, yes I agree that interpretations are mixed, but also evidence, between studies. And then interpretations of the entire body of evidence are mixed, but I personally don’t think that those interpretations are of much relevance, this is a discussion that has to happen at a more granular level of each sport.
I just finished reading a link (wish I kept the url) that argued trans woman runners still outperform cis women by 12% after 2 years of hormones, pointing out the competitive requirements are only 1 year of hormones. Only in the subtleties do you find that their metrics for performance did not just involve running speed (but included push-ups), and that the underlying research admitted in conclusions that they were likely over-rating the trans women’s competitiveness…
I actually think I’ve seen that one, yeah. One of the reasons I mention “what kind of strength”, and how that’s going to differ for each sport. But yeah, in that case, an exclusion period of two years, is not unreasonable at highly competitive levels.
One of the things that I read somewhere that REALLY stuck with me is this. There will always be an "evidence-based "argument to attack trans atheletes so long as there is at least one trans athelete that is outperforming cis atheletes. If trans women are equivalent to cis women, then the real answer is that it should be even (weighted obviously) odds that the best in the world would be trans or cis… but what we seek to validate “fairness” is that no trans athelete ever actually rises to the top. Because if they do, it must have been their gender advantage.
Yeah, I agree 100% here. We should expect a roughly proportional number of transgender women to be successful.
But literally any single example of a transgender women succeeding is enough to have people crying “but they’re a man!”. Because, for a lot of people, they really just wanted to call trans women men, the whole sports thing is mostly just pretense.
Exactly. I recently watched Lance Armstrong go off on a silly survival TV show about how trans folk should not be allowed in men/women’s sports and try to defend it with a truly pointless argument of “unless there’s overwhelming proof” bullshit.
He almost got voted off the show for that rant alone. If it weren’t on Fox, he would have.
I just don’t think there’s a blanket answer, that doesn’t involve invasive poking and prodding. There’s always going to be somebody unhappy.
Any pro-trans decision, like just opening it up and having ability ranked categories is in danger of sidelining women’s sports. But… they are anyway…
England have just reached the women’s World Cup final in Australia. I look out the window right now, and I don’t see a single England flag. For the men’s tournament last year there was so many flags about you’d think we’d just crowned a new king on St George’s Day. People were playing “Three Lions” for the 13th major tournament in a row. And we did fucking rubbish in that compared to the ladies.
It’s strange the these people “protecting women’s sports” are completely absent when it comes to supporting them.
It’s strange the these people “protecting women’s sports” are completely absent when it comes to supporting them.
It’s really not strange at all when you consider the fairly obvious fact that it was never about protecting women’s sports, but instead about finding a way to hurt trans people that plays well in the media.
Seriously, find me a conservative whose railing against trans women in sports that has actually attended a WNBA game, or is watching every game of the women’s world cup. I’m sure they exist, but I’d be surprised if even 5% of the people who act like the world will end if trans women are allowed to compete in sports have ever actually expressed interest in womens sports. And hell, I’ll bet the number who have actively made fun of womens sports before this became a hot topic is a hell of a lot higher lol
In most sports the men’s group is technically open. Most women just don’t succeed because of the sheer difference in physicality.
It might help you to understand that there has been a lot of study in many sports (for the very reason of your uncertainty).
Apparently, testosterone level (not birth gender) is the effective indicator of expected performance. In all women’s sports that allow trans competitors, trans individuals need to test **lower ** testosterone levels than are naturally allowable in cis women.
The issue is this. For someone trans to be willing and able to power through all the bullshit, they need to be uniquely dedicated and talented (or they’d just not do it). What that means is that unsurprisingly some trans individuals are absolutely phenomenal at a given sport.
Ultimately, there’s the problem. “We” seem to think a m>f individual doesn’t have an unfair advantage ONLY if they lose. So we’re not looking for the average or variance of skill, only the fact that there exists a trans individual that shines. It’s hard not to look at a trans woman winning and say “see, that’s what happens when someone born male competes with a woman in this sport”. But it’s also unscientific, as the science says trans women compete with comparative attributes to cis women.
Chess? Banning trans competitors is fucking idiotic and the chess federation can fuck right off with that implied notion of women being less capable.
Yeah, there’s no real defense to the two being separated in any league.
Maybe there needs to be just a women’s and open category to recognise the strength handicap that cis women have for certain activities and allow anyone to compete in open, but then there’s the challenge of prize money, viewers etc etc between the two that also needs to be managed appropriately.
I’m fairly certain that this is already the case, and what’s being done here as well. Specifically that there isn’t a “men’s” category, there’s open, and there’s women’s. In chess specifically it’s a strange situation. My understanding is that the existence of “women’s chess” isn’t due to any inferiority of play (though there’s undoubtedly some sexism in its origin) but rather as a way to entice women to play and grow the sport. There’s no restrictions on a woman being granted the grandmaster title, but a man can’t hold a Women’s Grandmaster title.
Not keeping your women specific titles as a trans man at least tracks for that. As to not being able to compete as a trans woman I don’t really see the point. I could see an argument for resetting your ELO because there is a lower ELO pool in women’s chess (due to population, nothing enforced) and your ELO could be unduly skewed, but idk. That’s kinda getting beyond my competitive chess knowledge
Tldr; this is probably dumb and misguided, but maybe not as hostile as the headline first looked to me
Statistics. The Woman’s league in principle only exists because many many more men play chess so they dominate the top ranks by statistics alone.
I like how this manages to be both transphobic and like insanely sexist. Way to go, FIDE! Can you guys work homophobia or racism in there for a hat trick?
Wow, Fuck FIDE
Given the current FIDE president is: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkady_Dvorkovich
It’s not much of a surprise.
Does he have a history of conservative nonsense or something?
He’s a hard-core insider in Russian Politics. He was the Deputy Prim Minister under Dmitry Medvedev for years. He’s been heavily involved in Moscow politics for years.
Well Russia’s recent push to make the lives of trans people worse has been after he left politics so I don’t really get the connection.
Russia has always tried to make the lives of trans people worse. It’s not remotely new, it’s just more prioritized now.
But you don’t understand! Clearly trans women having a different bone density gives them an unfair advantage because of, uh, something something integrity of sports.
You see, she hasn’t been on estrogen long enough to be as emotional and illogical as cis women, giving her an advantage in such strategic and intellectual pursuits as Chess. This isn’t one of the few board games that women can compete on a level playing field with men, like Shoots and Ladders or Candyland.
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But without fail, after we get some progress, they come up with some way of absolutely setting everything back with new weird regulations, changes in funding, changes in language. It’s bizarre. It’s self sabotage.
because it’s on purpose. They’re bigots, this is what bigots do to fight social progress.
lol why? Why is fucking chess transphobic that’s the dumbest thing ever
Now wait a minute. I can see why there are issues with males transitioning to female participating in female sports because a man is clearly advantaged over a female but in mental activities what does it matter?
From what I’ve been able to gather, when gender is anonymous like in online chess men and women seem to compete pretty comparably, but in real life women appear to compete worse against men than other women. Maybe they feel intimidated, idk, but that’s what the data seems to show.
Yeah I feel like it’s mostly a cultural thing. In the past, women were discouraged (and at a certain point not allowed) from playing chess, so it’s always been a male dominated hobby
In general, women tend to be reluctant to get into male dominated interests and occupations when there isn’t a welcoming, large enough space for them (e.g. depending on gender roles and expectations, some countries have mostly male doctors, some have an equal amount of male/female doctors, and some have mostly female doctors). So there isn’t exactly a large enough pool of women who care enough to really get into chess and make achievements in it. it’s also just, kind of a boring hobby to get into imo
