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.
  • Some people are questioning why there are gender-specific categories in chess.

    That’s a good question and my understanding is that there is only a female category and then the general one where both men and women can participate. The female one seems to have been created to encourage the participation of women due to the general one being monopolized by men.

    You may agree or not with that reasoning and I am not trying to take any stance on it, just trying to answer the questions on why they created a gender-specific category in the first place.

    I am not really into chess competitions and my understanding of this point is based on explanations I saw from others elsewhere, so I may be wrong.

    • Yeah, these categories are not a reflection of physical (or in this case mental abilities) but to give women a chance to shine in a mostly male dominated field. The problem is that when one side has bias in it’s favor, or is simply more prevalent in the competition, they get way over-represented and it discourages people from the other side(s) to join in since it seem futile.

      I think maybe a good way to get rid of this problem is for competition to feature more categories. In chess, for example, you could have categories and tournaments like youngest, newest to the game, underdogs, etc. which are more likely to feature a variety of players.

  • It is obvious that men, with they physically stronger bodies and larger frames, are better than women at chess. It would be unfair to them to compete with eachother, since the male brain is the bigger muscle. /s

    In all seriousness, I see absolutely no point in gender divisions in chess of all things.

    • The gender division is because women on average are worse than men at chess and likely to be eliminated in a tournament early on if they manage to qualify at all.

      This is because chess is a boys club where men and boys get better training and have an easier time advancing and practicing then women.

      The best way to get better at chess however are tournaments, where you can play your equal under a stressful and emotional context. Since women can’t advance as well as men because of discrimination, they wouldnt be able to play tournaments making it even more difficult to advance their game.

      The women’s league are created so that women can play in tournaments, get practice, get better and be able to play in the big boy tournaments as well as a creating an environment where sexual harrasment, which is also a problem at the main tournaments, is mitigated.

      Edit TL;DR women’s league are there because women chess players typically get sidelined. Its basically affirmative action.

      • So a protected category for women only, because of social factors rather than inherent physical differences.

        This makes some sense to me based on my own experiences in other areas like mathematics and science competitions. The boys in my school who knew me were mostly alright but it was still a very strange environment to be a teenage girl in. I was always keenly aware of being an outsider. And it was so much worse in rooms full of strangers at competitions. Intimidating and overwhelming.

        For all that I was consistently at or near the top in our school, I always fell at the outside competitions. Felt horrible too, that I was letting everyone down. I was too young to understand the sexism at play so I just beat myself up about it and stopped participating.

        In general, I support protected categories for women. We haven’t come anywhere near far enough in reducing sexism to make them unnecessary. I don’t know if it’s a big enough issue with trans women in competitive chess to make this sort of ruling. It might have the balance wrong. But it would be good if there was more understanding of what these kinds of environments can be like for cis girls and women.

        • Right, so the transphobic fear the FIDE has is that men might try to exploit a loophole by “posing” as trans. So they have these severe restrictions on who might be considered transitioned, why they will “alert” tournaments that someone is trans, why they require legal proof of transitioning before giving in and why they’re stripping trans men of their titles (so that if a cis man manages circumvent all these protection by successfully posing as a trans woman and having won all these titles transitions back, he no longer has them).

          It’s the same trans-panic as in so many other sport federations. Severe legislation hurting trans people trying to pre-empt a completely made up cheating scenario.

          edit: (hopefully) clarified the wording

          • why they’re stripping trans men of their titles (so that if a man manages circumvent all these protection by successfully posing as a trans woman and having won all these titles transitions back, he no longer has them).

            Uuh… What are you saying? A trans man posing as a trans woman? What.

            If you mean a cis man posing as a trans woman and then “detransitioning”, what do trans men have to do with it?

            • Sorry that got confusing, I’m referring to this section:

              If a player holds any of the women titles, but the gender has been changed to a man, the women titles are to be abolished. […] The abolished women title may be transferred into a general title of the same or lower level (e.g., WGM may be transferred into FM, WIM into CM, etc.).

              I think the scenario they are trying to prevent here is a cis man posing as a trans woman getting access to the easier womens titles, gaining titles like Womens Grandmaster, and then “detransitioning”. Now they are in possession of a Grandmaster title they wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. It’s not the Grandmaster title but still. So to prevent that they’re now a FIDE master.

              The solution to this completely made up problem ends up of course stripping trans men of their “Womens …” title to a lower title.

              • The solution to this completely made up problem ends up of course stripping trans men of their “Womens …” title to a lower title.

                If trans mens’ titles are converted to general titles of equal level (which the policy does allow for - it does say “same or lower level”), it would actually be a really good policy, as it would prevent trans men being outed by having “Womens…” titles. But given the rest of the changes are blatantly transphobic, it doesn’t seem that respecting the privacy of trans men was the goal.

                • Yes the policy “allows” for that, but the decision solely lies with FIDE. And the examples they give are of deranking. What they mean by that is not Changing Womens Grandmaster into a general Grandmaster. The requirements for a GM are higher. You need 2500 ELO and perform three “norms” of 2600 performance rating. Essentially have high ELO and show against other GMs your skill. For a WGM you need an ELO of 2300 and three “norms” of 2400 performance rating.

                  Since a WGM doesn’t meet the GM requirements (otherwise they would be a GM) they can’t get that title. But now they’re stripped of their WGM title as well and placed in rank of FIDE master, which requires “only” an ELO of 2300, and no norms. As such it is lower than WGM.

                  A player at that level is already well connected and known in the community. They wouldn’t be able to keep their transition secret, what with the rumour mill going around. Plus the decision of whether they want to “derank”, giving up their earned title for a lower but more gender-affirming one, should ultimately lie with the person and not with the body that already bestowed that title on them.

            • Yeah I thought you were the person I had initially replied to, and was expanding on my initial thought trying to clarify that while having a womens category is not discrimination, this regulation is discriminatory.

    •  Gormadt   ( @Gormadt@beehaw.org ) 
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      191 year ago

      Of course they are, the pieces are super manly in the men’s games. Made of concrete for extra ruggedness and painted manly colors, nothing bright or cheerful as far as the eye could see. And the chairs they sit in are also super manly no comfort at all. All played on a manly tactical chessboard. /S

      Seriously though this whole decision just screams “cruelty is the point” and no concept of equality.

        •  emma   ( @emma@beehaw.org ) 
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          1 year ago

          They seem to be applying the correct gender retroactively, with a key difference being that there’s a women’s protected category and an open category. Women, cis or trans, can play in the open category so change in gender status for someone who competed as if they were a man (and thus necessarily in the open category) is irrelevant to the titles.

          At present I’m inclined to disagree with this apparent retroactive application so I’m not defending this, just explaining my understanding of their thinking. It’s about open and protected categories. If it was men’s only and women’s only, it would be different.

        • 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.

      • The women’s division exists because when the world of chess begrudgingly started to accept women at all, the massive amount of sexism discouraged women from actually playing and competing. So the other division exists to allow them to be acknowledged as players and be able to participate with a (reduced) amount of sexism driving women away.

        So same reason there are colleges for women and black folks, they were established because they were either excluded or driven out of existing institutions.

  • Ah, yes, because being trans definitely has a bearing on whether or not you’re good at chess. These totally aren’t just explicitly transphobic policies enacted by bigoted old men. I would also like to point out that the current president of FIDE is the former deputy prime minister of Russia. Not that Russian people are all transphobic, but I wonder if some of Putin’s influence isn’t in this decision.

  • See, I can see the arguments for this for like physical sports. And to be clear I fully support trans people but I can understand how being born male can give you certain advantages in physical sports that make it unfair towards women who were born female. I don’t know the right answer for how to handle it, but I can see how the complaints make sense.

    But fucking chess? Come on what the hell advantage do people amab have over cis women in chess? This is bigotry pure and simple.

  • Jesus christ do they not edit these things before they press release them? If a trans masc person comes out he’ll lose his titles in the women’s category, but if he detransitions he’ll get them back? Fantastic they came up with rules specifically for the less than 1% of people who detransition. If a detransitioner were to win titles, then transition then detransition. They had to get that out there lest anyone claim they’re being unfair 🙄

    What is the implication here?? That trans woman are not socially disadvantaged enough by misogyny to qualify as deserving access to the women’s category? Trans women. Quite possibly the most vilified people in society. Who suffer from the same systems of misogyny. If a cis woman had grown up in a society that prized female chess players would she also be excluded from the women’s category? If we’re considering some kind of “how discouraged from playing chess were you” based trans exclusionary rule, why is that same rule not being applied equally to cisgender women?

    I am so fucking tired of people acting like trans women have any kind of social advantage in literally any context. We meet hatred and violence at every single level of society. A trans woman playing in the “open” (see men’s) category of chess would face that exact same discrimination and hatred the moment she achieved any kind of recognition for herself. Look at any trans athlete. They act like we get deified or something, when the reality is the moment we achieve anything we’re essentially forced to retire immediately to stop the endless onslaught of hatred and harassment that is immediately directed at us.

    • The misogyny is so hefty. “Men are inherently better at everything than women, women are inherently worse at everything than men. Trans women are men, therefore inherently better than all other women at everything and must be disqualified…”

      I wish I could remember the quote (and who said it) about how all the various forms of sex/gender/orientation hate boil down to misogyny. It was erudite and extremely effective.

  • Um … what does gender or gender identity have to do with advantages or disadvantages in chess. Of all competitions where this is absolutely meaningless, surely Chess has to be nearly top of that list.

    • There is a huge gender gap and the men discriminate against women and prefer to play other men. Thus the women get worse/less diverse practice than men which leads to them being worse at chess on average than men.

      This leads to them not qualifying for tournaments, which means even less chances to practice because the best way to get better are tournaments. Thus the womens league so they can at least play their equal in a tournament setting. Also having a lower entry barrier for women hopefully motivates more women/girls to play chess.

  • Edit: In this comment I try to rationalize FIDE’s decision, but in my other replies I come to the conclusion that it hurts transgender people much more than it helps women as a group.

    The “open” tournament is where the best chess player among men, women, both, neither, and everything under the sun can compete. In my opinion, everything outside of that the “who’s the best X” is based on arbitrary conditions of what qualifies as X, and doesn’t reflect on whether people in group X are inherent any better or worse than anyone outside that limited group.

    Women and members of LGBTQ+ should be encouraged to join the chess world as it’s not a physical sport and anyone can become the best, so these rules support that. There should be a trans-person league as well if there’s sufficient interest, but FIDE has every right to make rules to limit who enters the “woman” tournament, without needing to imply that men are inherently better or worse than women at chess.

    I absolutely understand that this sounds like a TERF-y line of argument even though I strongly believe trans women ARE women and vice versa, there are TERFs among women who wouldn’t want to take up chess because the space is so dominated by male players by the numbers. The “case-by-case” view is arbitrary to me which I’d like to see a more transparent process, but I think at the end of the day FIDE can disqualify anyone out of any tournament for any reason and this at least provides an avenue for trans women to potentially participate. Rule 4.1 that trans men lose their titles of “best woman” is consistent with the idea that trans men are men, because post-transition they shouldn’t be considered women anymore, by my understanding.

    Anyways, I don’t mean to barge in to blindly spout transphobic views. In the spirit of healthy discussion I welcome people to disagree with me and give me insight on how FIDE can balance being more inclusive while promoting all genders to participate in chess.

    • The FIDE’s ruling on trans men shows they “think trans men are men” (they probably don’t actually, but that’s what the ruling implies), yet they then ban trans women from women’s competitions, meaning they don’t think trans women are women, by implication. This ruling isn’t consistent, isn’t fair, nor does it actually accomplish anything besides driving out a minority group who already have a tough enough time just existing in the first place. It’s also not even fair to trans men to strip their titles, as they likely won those titles when they didn’t know they were a man.

      The ruling here is in no way reasonable, IMO. It exists to hurt people and does nothing else. Trans women need women’s spaces just as much as cis women do and banning trans women from women’s spaces does not “protect the women” like some people cite for rulings like this, it just further alienates trans people. If someone gets bent out of shape because a trans person exists in the same space as them, they can go fuck themselves, that’s their problem, not a trans person’s problem.

      I heavily disagree with you saying “and this at least provides an avenue for trans women to potentially participate” considering before this ruling, trans women could already play in both women’s tournaments and open tournaments and now are banned from women’s tournaments. It’s the opposite of being inclusive. If you’re a trans woman, would you want to go play chess if you’re specifically told that you can’t play in women’s only spaces? No, you probably wouldn’t even start. This new ruling specifically exists to discourage trans women from competing by othering them and saying they aren’t woman enough to go play with the other women.

      The best way for the FIDE to be inclusive is to continue just having open and women’s spaces as usual and not fuck with trans people’s ability to exist in spaces consistent with their gender. There were no problems being caused before, this ruling isn’t fixing anything, it’s just hurting people.

      • If you’re a trans woman, would you want to go play chess if you’re specifically told that you can’t play in women’s only spaces? No, you probably wouldn’t even start.

        Which is ironic, because isn’t this kind of the same reasoning for creating women’s tournaments in the first place? To provide a safe space for women away from the “boy’s club” mentality that turned women off from pursuing chess?

      • I absolutely get your point but I have to still think about it a little. Say we removed the arbitrariness of the judgement panel process, allowing trans women to compete unconditionally in the women’s competition. Would the rule to strip trans men’s titles be considered fair and equal treatment in that case?

        Now absolutely this is a reductive approach which doesn’t even take NB etc. into account for inclusivity.

        On second thought, I’ve come to the conclusion that TERFs can be TERFs, and if they don’t want to play chess because a trans person could be among them, screw them, they can go elsewhere. So you’re right, FIDE needn’t concern themselves with what TERFs think what a “real woman” should be.

        Thank you for your response and letting me walk through this.

      • I’ve thought about it for a bit, see my other reply to @EsteeBestee.

        I’ve ultimately come to the conclusion that really these rules are to protect the comfort of TERFs, and to be the most inclusive, FIDE shouldn’t concern themselves on what TERFs think a “real woman” should be like.

        I’ve made an honest attempt to find a rationale that supports inclusivity in FIDE’s decision but after some consideration I realize it weighs much more against transgender rights than it supports women’s rights.

        • And like… I kind of get where you were coming from, since certain media does its best to say that trans women are “invading” women’s spaces or that trans women are inherently “unfair” when compared to cis women, so even if you don’t buy into that stuff specifically, it can still be somewhat pervasive, especially since it isn’t always hate-media spreading that. There’s always a sort of background noise about how trans people are bad in some way, so it can be hard to have fully resolved thoughts on the subject.

          The only issues I’ve personally seen relating to trans women in women’s spaces is if a terf loses their shit, and usually in that case, the other cis women lose their shit at the terf. At least in my own life, the overwhelming majority of cis women seem to have no problem with trans women existing in women’s spaces (where I am, at least, which is an admittedly progressive area) and I’ve never really seen a trans woman causing issues, personally, even in sport (I know there were some high level cases in the last few years, but that’s like less than 1% of cases, most trans women in sport are just… women… playing sports). I guess that’s why I’m so headstrong and forward on the topic, since media says all this and that about trans people and hardly none of it has been true in my own life. I know others’ personal experiences will be different than mine, but I’m just really sick of seeing hate directed at minorities who just want to exist (you were not directing hate, I mean the FIDE ruling, you were being pretty darn reasonable, even if you initially disagreed with me).

  • Yeah, because I guess trans people have an unfair advantage in also… checks notes chess!??

    Whoever came up with this bs is one step away from admitting they think men are smarter than women, I can feel it. Gender essentialism needs to eat shit and die already. blobcat, middlefinger