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.
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.
I need clarification. What does “social advantage” have to do with chess performance, or the restricted competition class of women’s chess?
In the case of professional chess, the social advantage men have is not being relentlessly bullied, harassed, and condescended to for their gender. It should be quite obvious that this is not an advantage that a trans woman would have.