International Chess Federation, FIDE, has released new guidelines targeting transgender players. The guidelines would strip trans men’s titles, and potentially bar trans women from playing.
In recent months, the discussion surrounding transgender participation in sports has intensified. Several sports organizations have ruled that transgender women cannot participate in their competitions. This trend has expanded beyond traditional sports like swimming, touching even disc golf and billiards, based on perceived “advantages” of transgender athletes. The reaction to trans people in competition has grown to include non-sporting contests like beauty pageants and Jeopardy! after seeing transgender success. Now, FIDE, the world’s foremost international chess organization, has introduced guidelines that would revoke titles from transgender men and bar many transgender women from competing, asserting that trans women "have no right to participate.”
The regulations, reported online by French transgender FIDE master, Yosha Iglesias, spell out a list of policy changes that apply to transgender competition in chess. Among the policy changes:
Transgender men must relinquish their women-category titles after transitioning.
Transgender women can keep their previous titles.
Transgender women have “no right to compete” in the women’s division.
Transgender women will be “evaluated” by the FIDE Council on if they will be allowed to compete in a process that may take up to 2 years.
FIDE can mark transgender players as “transgender” in their files.
Gender changes must be “comply with the player’s national laws” and may include birth certificate documents (despite many nations refusing to change transgender birth certificates)
See the main page on transgender participation from the organization:
The unveiling of these regulations drew widespread ridicule, with numerous individuals challenging the notion that transgender women possess a “natural advantage” in chess. According to the chess news site Chessbase, the women’s category in chess exists to encourage increased participation among women, not because women inherently perform at a lower level in the game. Thus, the typical arguments against transgender women competing don’t hold water, as it’s implausible to claim that transgender women have an unfair advantage.
This isn’t the first instance of scrutiny regarding transgender participation in non-physical competitions. In 2022, transgender Jeopardy champion Amy Schneider set the record as the highest-winning woman in Jeopardy history. Following her success, several anti-trans voices online claimed she unfairly took the title from “real women,” suggesting that transgender women possess an inherent advantage in trivia over cisgender women.
The regulations are harmful and discriminatory towards transgender individuals. The logic behind revoking titles from transgender men transitioning from the women’s category is not explained anywhere in the document. Additionally, these rules would delay transgender women from competing for up to two years while their gender is examined, and could even prohibit them indefinitely. Given that the usual “unfair advantage” argument doesn’t logically apply in this context, these regulations appear to unfairly target transgender individuals while sidestepping even the usual arguments against trans competition.
The enforcement of these policies remains unclear. Iglesias took to Twitter, asking, “Am I woman enough?” She listed the FIDE council members, sharing photos that depict the majority as older cisgender men, adding, “these people will decide.” The documents don’t specify how decisions regarding a transgender member’s participation will be made. Until further clarity, transgender international chess players face uncertainty about their continued involvement in the sport.
Wouldn’t this mean the FIDE thinks that AMAB brains are “superior” to AFAB brains? Isn’t that extremely fucked up?
yes, they’re not even being TERFS here, just flat out going full mask off with the misogyny alongside the transphobia.
TERFshit is just misogyny?
always was
idk at least the normal TERF shit has the slightest veneer of concern for women if you don’t think about it seriously and do a little bit of reading for like 5 minutes, but I feel like even normies could look and see the blatant misogyny here ya know?
Yeah a lot of terf rhetoric is basically just doing the wrong type of sexism. Women/trans men get called fragile dainty victims who need protection, men and trans women are described as
cw sv mention
hulking rape ogres ready to enact violence at any moment.
Obviously there’s more to it, like right wing trans hate that repackages homophobic rhetoric, but this is one kind I see a lot.
No, this goes further than brains. It’s pure essentialism.
These people believe that there is some man-essence that is created during conception and is then projected to onto your body, defining who you are.
Even if you show them brain scans for transpeople that refutes everything they say, it doesn’t matter. This goes all the way back to the idea of immutability of the soul and such nonsense.
Well except for saying transmen aren’t allowed their titles anymore retroactively unless they detransition. I guess cause people would get mad seeing Kai McMichaels listed as a Woman’s Cup Champ in 2016 or something.
It really all does come down to
Is it possible that all transphobia is rooted in, and ultimately an expression of misogyny?
the majority of chess players are middle aged white men with no life and an alcohol problem who actually unironically think that
I’m sure there’s at least a few who don’t want women playing chess at all, or who don’t consider women’s chess legitimate
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