The World Chess Foundation has ruled that transgender women cannot compete in its competitions for women. The decision by FIDE, the Switzerland-based federation, is perplexing and disturbing. FIDE is setting a two-year period for review. Frankly, I do not understand why there are male and female competitions in chess where relative strength is not an issue. Yet, even assuming that there is some reason to have separate competitions, the ban on transgender women seems entirely gratuitous and wrong.
FIDE said ”[t]wo years is a scope of sight that seemed reasonable for the thorough analyses of such developments. It is to set a certain deadline for a new reiteration of these policies, without rushing it.” In the interim, ”[i]n the event that the gender was changed from a male to a female the player has no right to participate in official FIDE events for women until further FIDE’s decision is made.”
There was recently a bizarre case involving a man who wore a burka to compete in the women’s competition in Kenya.
The common rationale for separate competitions is marketing and development:
“[S]eparate tournaments for girls and women don’t mean that girls and women are more or less capable than boys and men at chess. However, there may be less interest in chess among girls and women compared to boys and men. Based on 2019 statistics, 14.6% of US Chess members are female, and that is a new, record-high percentage. Thus logically, and in reality, a smaller base of females means fewer women than men at the top of the chess rating list, as one study found. Offering occasional female-only tournaments may make chess more attractive to girls and women, for the financial, social, and publicity reasons mentioned above.”
Yet, since chess is an intellectual contest, it is hard to see why gender should have any role in competitions. Even though there are fewer female chess players, there are still many who can compete at the highest level. There are thousands of women competing and capable of succeeding on the highest levels. Those women can be used as role models and promoted by the federation. That would seem preferable to a segregation of players by gender.
Even if one accepts the marketing and development rationale, it is hard to imagine why transgender women should be barred from women’s competitions on that basis.
Because “transgender women” aren’t women. If they decide there is no reason for female only and male only categories and have just one, then both sexes can compete together. Until then, it is men with men and women with women. Why try to confuse people with falsehoods.
WHILE THERE IS NO NATURAL STRENGTH ADVANTAGE IN CHESS — OR MATH/ PHYSICS OR COUNTLESS OTHER INTELLECTUAL PURSUITS– MEN STILL DOMINATE THE VERY HIGHEST LEVELS IN ALL OF THESE PURSUITS
WHY/ NOT REALLY SURE- CERTAINLY A HIGHER % OF MEN PURSUING THESE HELPS THE MENS CAUSE BUT DOES NOT FULLY ACCOUNT FOR MALE DOMINANCE AT THE TOP OF THESE PURSUITS
DOES NOT ME A MYSOGINIST, JUST A GUY THAT THAT CAN READ FACTS W/O ASSUMING SOME ALLEGED “ISM”
Men and women are different. Lots of science deniers here.
We have nieces that were both valedictorians. Both maxed out AP science and math classes. Both went to college entering the engineering program, Both hated it and change majors their sophomore year. Our son, a few years younger, with no AP classes entered the same engineering program. At orientation, 60% of the freshman class were female. At graduation females were less than 10%.
Men and women are different. Why the left insists there is no difference is a huge lie.
If I were the King of the Chess federation, I would just eliminate the women’s division. Problem solved. (fewer women would participate, because never winning a tournament is discouraging). But why reach out to women? Whats the reason? I demand we do the same in sports.
Dissolve all the women’s divisions
Why do people make this so hard?
Meh. You’re just catering to crazies.
P.S. “Gender” is not a synonym for “sex”.
I realize that the misuse by many is habitual and habits are hard to break, but people don’t have “genders”, and “female” and “male” aren’t “genders”.
“Gender” egalitarians won’t want to hear this, but just like in the extreme maths, as well as sports requiring strength, or for that matter, military combat skills, we look for the very few who are the very best. Those best are going to be outliers. On the bell curves, male outliers extend further than women outliers, even when those women are truly superior and can beat all the other men. Same thing in, e.g. in horse racing.
Then factor in the vast group differences between the sexes in their interests in pursuing certain kinds of activities. That makes it even more unlikely that a once-in-a-lifetime extreme outlier female (and there occasionally have been a few in academic pursuits although not physical pursuits, e.g. Lisa Lane in chess) will show up.
Then factor in the social or cultural or psychological meaning of “competitions”. What is it about “competitions” that we the spectators like so much.
These competitions, whether intellectual or athletic (barring stuff such as beauty contests or children’s spelling bees), developed over centuries, not merely for comraderie and club fun or spectator entertainment, but as symbolic substitutes for physical combat.
That meaning is internalized among all cultures, even sub- or unconsciously, and it’s why spectators aren’t as thrilled when females compete either with each other or with men, even when they win. It simply doesn’t translate properly, doesn’t stand in for what the competition means psychologically.
It’s not reallly a head-scratcher.
In other news: “Caïssa Comes Out as Trans”
The World Chess Foundation held an emergency meeting after the God(ess) of Chess “Caïssa” declared that she is Trans, forcing the governing body to reassess its gender policies.
What is to gain from any of this??
Trans “women”, or “biological men”, no matter which you want to call them, have a goddamn place to compete in all sports. The mens division. If you are an athlete with a penis and you choose to take estrogen, that is your decision and you should live with the ramifications. If the argument is that there is no scientific explanation for why men are better at chess than women, then why do trans women need to compete against women? Whats to gain from that???
I don’t see the logic in allowing trans to play. It seems that men play woman and vise versa all the time so there is really no advantage in being a twit and saying you are the other sex. Other than making headlines and I would say that many if not most are looking for their 10 minutes of fame.