The international chess federation known as FIDE has published new rules that state that a person whose “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”.
The new rules introduce the following changes:
- Trans women cannot participate in the women’s category unless they are explicitly allowed in a case-by-case process that can take up to two years.
- Trans men will be stripped of their titles achieved before their transition while trans women will retain their titles achieved before their transition.
- In case a trans person is allowed to participate, their trans condition will be added to their files and communicated to events organizers.
It’s based on the elo of the player. As an example, a Women’s Grand Master (WGM) is someone with an elo of atleast 2300 with three norms (played against others with a similar title). Compare that to an International Master, which is someone with an elo of 2400 and three norms (here the norms are against an IM). A Fide Master has an elo of 2300 with no norm, so a WGM is as strong as an FM. So FIDE argues that a WGM transitioning to a man may be given the title FM, and so on. However, in the other case, an IM (male or female) transitioning would have the same rating since IM > WGM, and hence the same title.
Edit: elo is a rating scale irrespective of gender. Higher elo implies better player.