The world’s top chess federation has ruled that transgender women cannot compete in its official events for females until an assessment of gender change is made by its officials.
This isn’t like running or something where men have a significant advantage physically over women just make it mixed gender and be done with it people can claim whatever gender they want and chess can avoid getting into a politically charged firestorm
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Please use some punctuation, your comment was really hard to read.
Having said that, I agree
Sorry dude adhd man
And they also made it so trans men have to give up any women’s titles they’ve earned. So, they simultaneously think trans men are men, but trans women are not women.
If anything, based on the past comments of the head of the organization, they have a position that’s generally “women are dumber than men and we want to make decisions that align with that ethos always”.
I’ve stopped being surprised by chess dorks after it came out that America’s Champion, Bobby Fischer, our Hope Against The Commie Gameplaying Menace was literally a neo-Nazi and not subtle about it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Fischer
Holy crap that was a wild read. Jewish Mother but a Holocaust denier. Died in exile in Iceland while evading criminal deportation to the US. I had this vague memory that he was an asshole but I had no idea.
I’m more partial to Kasparov myself.
America supporting fascists, because they are anti-communist, has looooong history.
Fascists 🤝 Capitalists
At least for the first stage of the tumour.
And the terminal stage.
Silly question, why does chess, a mental activity, need gendered leagues?
It doesn’t in principle, and it’s not really either.
There is the main league, which is open for everyone, and an extra league for women only to offset the male dominance of the main league.
Why they feel the need to exclude trans women from that I have no idea. Even many of the physical sports allow trans women under certain conditions and only to prevent any unfair advantage due to increased muscle growth during puberty.
It’s not gendered. If there is a female super GM she will be invited to the most prestigious tournaments. But there isn’t any… and that’s a whole other debate
Women are scared of weak nerdy men or something…
Women gated off their league because every their move is commented on as a female one. They can’t fail for it’s deepens the stereotype of women=stupid and they can’t win for it’s just man wasn’t paying attention or played easy for her. The lack of women chess clubs and championships, the stereotype of it being not a sport for women is why there aren’t many high ELO players in this isolated and weird situation.
One of the last strongholds of a fragile male nerd supremacy, that’s all.
Women have more places to hide the sex toys.
Edit: it’s a bad joke referencing the recent cheating scandal
Have you met chess bros?
I can see why women would want their own league.
The average chess bro is not a trans woman.
The average trans woman chess player was assigned chess bro at birth.
Chess at pro level is brutal. One can get mentally mauled if the adversary has a superior, trained for cruel psychological warfare, mind.
Men just don’t stand a chance.
Because the whole idea of gendered leagues in games that ultimately don’t matter at all is about segregation and control, not physiology.
Bring on the down votes from the “but muh sports 'tegridy!” clowns.
Edit: some of yall need a class on statistics lol
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So is your argument that women are inherently inferior at chess or…?
You did see the numbers? I mean, what else do you need?
I weep for your (in)ability to interpret statistics.
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What you have just said is that there is a cultural difference and I agree with that. Dont confuse that with a difference based on sex, or physiology, in other words.
Obviously, men and women on a 1:1 basis have equal potential to excel at chess, based on their sex, right?
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I can’t help you to understand the difference between cultural statistics and physiological potential I guess lol
Anyone know what the highest rated trans male and trans female chess players are? Would be interesting to know if this rule is even currently necessary.
I can’t find any trans men ranked, but the highest rating I can find for a trans woman is Natalia Pares Vives with a ranking of 2213, or about 325th on the chess.com women’s rankings.
You basically have chess and women’s chess. Anyone can play chess, both men and women, but only women can play women’s chess.
The removed the titles from transgender players who won titles in women’s chess.
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If chess.com’s rankings are to be believed, none :/
That’s exactly what I was thinking.
Yeah I don’t get it either
I’d say, trans is way more experienced at use of anal buds
In girl chess the pieces are pink.
All of the pieces. On both sides of the board. Mentally it’s much more taxing keeping track of which pieces are yours. We guys have it really easy with the whole black/white pieces.
Actually women are just better at seeing colour and for them what looks like the same pink to us is actually 17 different shades.
And on average, they only start out with 80% of the pieces of the men’s set.
Because otherwise women couldn’t currently compete beyond the local level. But I don’t have an explanation for the difference in playing levels beyond the fact that much fewer women seem to be interested in playing Chess competitively.
So you’re saying that women are not as smart as men?
There is an open bracket (where anyone can play) and a womens bracket, currently women do not perform well enough to play internationally in the open bracket. What they are stating are merely facts. And really were it not for the existence of the womens bracket it is possible that women would perform even worse.
No. First of all Chess has nothing to do with being smart in any sense I would use the word.
Otherwise a Raspberry Pi would outsmart all of humanity.Secondly, it’s much more similar to why the Faroe Islands can’t compete in soccer with France.
Nothing suggests they have less natural talent for soccer (and it’s quite popular there), but there’s just 1/1000 the number of players to draw from.
shaun did an excellent video on exactly this. TL;DW: stereotype threat & harassment.
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As is tradition
Fucking hell some of us can be idiots…
So women can play chess without the added mental burdens that come along with being a women in a male dominated space.
TIL: Chess had separate things for genders.
Weird…
Isn’t this sexist ?
There open and women so it’s not exactly separate
I’m not sure I understand your sentence, could you explain a little more?
The sexist assholes were driving away women, so the separate league was to allow women to compete without (or with less) hostility.
I just don’t understand this shit but it seems to happen with all sorts of games: Why the fuck do people care what gender players have? Like, why!? Just play the game and stop worrying about other people. Damn.
It isn’t a game specific issue. It is a general social problem that is easier to observe in sports because of the historical exclusion of women from most high profile sports.
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They don’t want the chess geeks to jizz their pants. /s
Today we learned that bigots think trans women have a biological advantage at being smarter and more logical than cis women.
Last month we learned that bigots think trans women are hotter than cis women.
Starting to think bigots don’t think clearly.
If trans men (and by extension all men) are equally smart and logical as women, why even have separate men and women categories? Let women compete with men and we’ll soon find which gender is more smart and logical.
That results in fewer women participating
“Damn those trans women, they’re so hot, and smart, and funny, and athletic…”
What? Is this real? Are the men and women not competing together? It is not a physical competition. Why the separation?
The reason there’s a women’s league in the first place is so they don’t get harassed by the men (ostensibly).
So while on the surface, a gendered League is stupid, there are real world reasons for the separation.
This decision might / maybe / could be an extension of that reasoning. But very likely it’s not, and it’s just more bullshit anti trans policy.
The best way to prevent harassment is not bigoted segregation by gender, but in fact punishing or banning people who harass others.
Totally. But, you know, some people are idiots.
Yes, but to do that the organization would have to accept that the sexism is wrong and have the motive to do something about it.
or they could just like… Not allow harassment.
Really the game is chess, you shouldnt even need to see your oponent, so it could be all done online.
Chess was pretty much perfected decades ago - now all the tournaments thrive on is psyching out your opponent, which they’ve made women an easy target by isolating them. No wonder they statistically do worse
The solution to men harassing women (and generally making them unwelcome, as they do) should not be to segregate women though, it should be to discipline men.
Which leads me to the real reason why women are segregated (because clearly isn’t about their safety or their inclusion) - because the men involved would have an absolute breakdown if they were beaten by a woman (not a problem exclusive to chess, either).If that’s the reason, I’d imagine trans women would be the most likely to be harassed by the cis men who are harassing cis women.
Do you really have to ask…? It’s so obviously a bigoted decision, if real.
Currently, the top women don’t come close to the top men. Considering how few female chess players are in comparison, it’s not a surprise.
Having a women’s league means you can have chess news about women’s tournaments and champs and give them some visibility.
Currently, the top women don’t come close to the top men
because they’re excluded at all levels, lets not pretend it’s because women aren’t as good and need “protecting” from the “superior” men.
That doesn’t make any sense.
Yes, they don’t compete with men, but they still have women’s league and women from that league don’t come close to men (not all, ofcourse).
Could making united league deter women even more? Very possible.
I am not against, but still I think a strong bump in women’s chess league with marketing, money, better condition would be great, before possible merging.
Currently, women would just suffer with results for long time.
Unfortunately Chess doesn’t seem as healthy and open for that, and that is just sad.
I feel like if you really wanted to know you could easily look up the barriers that women face in chess (and in all sports), and I honestly don’t feel like spoon feeding you such basics, so I’m going to just paste my other reply here and leave it up to you to start educating yourself if you really want to:
The solution to men harassing women (and generally making them unwelcome, as they do) should not be to segregate women though, it should be to discipline men.
Which leads me to the real reason why women are segregated (because clearly isn’t about their safety or their inclusion) - because the men involved would have an absolute breakdown if they were beaten by a woman (not a problem exclusive to chess, either).
To be clear, the head of FIDE is this guy with close ties to the Russian fascist state.
And the CEO is Emil Sutovsky, who recently made a twitter poll, basically asking, let’s be honest, does anyone actually care to watch this women’s tournament? When he never made a similar poll for any other tournament.
The chess world really needs to outgrow the sexist and transphobic FIDENo wonder the “gender change” wording of their new rules is so similar to the new Russian law that essentially bans transitioning.
One can imagine that every oligarch who wants to suck the milk of Mr. Putin is required to demonstrate loyalty periodically by pissing in the eyes of one of Mr. Putin’s designated targets. LGBTQ+ is just one of those.
I knew professional chess was blatantly sexist, but transphobic now too? Not surprised just dissappointed
I knew professional chess was blatantly sexist
How?
Why is there a division between sexes in chess? Why is a “chess master” different from a “woman chess master”?
From what I have seen in chess forums, many old-school male chess players think there is a difference in analytical vs emotional mind or something in that vein which is just a thinly veiled version of sexism
It’s not helping to disprove that thinking if you need to create a separate protected league for women… Also what does it matter what other people think? It’s not a team based game… Also even if the clubs are separated by gender to create a nicer atmosphere or whatever, why should tournaments be?
Exactly, they shouldn’t be separated.
Ugh, why do they feel the need to even write these rules in the first place? I can almost guarantee you there’s like, five trans people who are even registered to play chess. Why go to so much effort to block such a fraction of a percent of people anyways?
Whenever I read articles like these, I substitute “trans” for a different minority, such as a racial or ethnic minority, and it really puts it in perspective.
I remember when Utah made a huge deal about it in women’s sports. And someone like the Utah governor was against it, saying he’d never seen so much hate around something so little. He told his colleagues that in the entire state, only four trans youth were even playing registered sports, and most were JV, not even going to competitions. It’s sad to see people so stoked by hate for something so…mundane. :/
Because the point is to eschew hatred towards people who are different. Since they can’t have a “no black people” rule anymore, they target another vulnerable minority community.
The same people claiming transwomen would ruin women’s sports were celebrating when the U.S. women’s team lost the World Cup.
I’ve been on Lemmy for a couple of months now - best comment I’ve read so far. You absolutely nailed it.
this makes sense because cis women have such small bones they can’t reach past the centre board, giving most trans women and tall cis women an inherent advantage. /s
what the fuck chess this is just blatant transphobia
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average @mtgzone user
It’s transphobia and misogyny. Because it implies that men are smarter than women.
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I don’t think it’s a issue in chess. Unless they have to run 100m while holding the chess board.
They consider trans women men, and men are smarter than women. That’s what it implies anyway.
Being good at chess isn’t about being “smart”, a lot of top chess players will tell you as much. It is however about things like spatial awareness and pattern recognition, and some studies have demonstrated those traits to be, on average, stronger in male subjects. I’m sure evidence to the contrary exists though.
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Or chess boxing
Lol, literally the only game where physical size, bone density, lung capacity and muscle strength does not matter is keeping men and women separate! Haha… In chess there should be no separate category for women, unless… Unless… Unless we believe that women are less smarter than men.
Sorry to be contrarian here, but at the high competitive level chess is a cardiovascular challenge. If you listen to serious chess players talk about playing it’s not just a simple mental exercise.
High performing chess players have a higher HRV. Chess grandmasters might be sitting still but their body is undergoing a high degree of stress. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2019-14359-001
Men statistically have higher HRV on average, and the outliers are even more extreme. https://www.whoop.com/ca/en/thelocker/normal-hrv-range-age-gender/
So when you enter into a competitive environment it’s just nicer to know you have a MORE level playing field.
I know chess specifically is controversial with regards to gender stuff and I’m not saying it’s perfect. I’m just saying that there are real reasons to support separate brackets.
Wow. Looks like people can’t handle facts huh.
Hold up. I’m not super experienced in reading studies, but I can read.
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At best this is correlation. HRV increasing for these men doesn’t mean a high HRV is required to be good at chess.
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Sample size of 16… And only male.
HRV was reduced in participants who achieved worse results. This could indicate the possibility of HRV predicting cognitive performance
If reduced HRV means lower cognitive performance and women have, on average, lower HRV, you’re saying women are less smart. At least in chess. I think that’s bullshit and this study isn’t incorporating enough/the correct data to show anything you’re stating.
But here is one: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0149763411002077 that links HRV with stress response
And another: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0149763419310292 That shows women’s HRV responds less severely to stress.
Both meta-analysis, not a single data point.
So maybe men are just shit at dealing with stress and that’s why their brains go haywire during competition. But it’s so gracious of you being so kind to women and giving them a space where they can play among equals on a “MORE level playing field.”
By your logic, they should just be testing people’s HRV and ranking them that way so they all are on even ground. Give those dummy men a MORE level playing field.
Heh, TIL chess is cardio.
But as a person whos heart rate also increases while playing competitive board games, I can say the heart rate increase is usually due to adrenalin because I was blindsighted and I am in danger of not getting my ‘easy win’ or a toddler like rage at my predictions going wrong. YMMV.
Remember the chess player accused of cheating via anal dildo?
Also remember Petrosian? He spawned a whole bot over on AnarchyChess.
Pretty sure those two’s heart rates had nothing to do with increased bloodflow to the brain to make calculated decisions.
Having my ass handed to me in chess (amateur level) by women a couple of times makes me think that maybe the segregation is to protect men, rather than women. Or I might just be a bad chess player.
Why, if Petrosian had gone berserk on women instead of men, he probably would have had a huge reputation hit. With a bot quoting him for all internet eternity or some stuff like that. Oh, wait.
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Not less smarter, just able to treat chess like it’s more important than survival. I think the abstraction/maladaptive traits required for excellence at the very edge are more commonly observed in men that care, unwisely, only about results and that the ends justify the means, however stupid or insane.
Also, chess is a war/power-fantasy boardgame whose rules and dynamics were likely invented by and for men, and could be inherently biased.
This just in: throughout all of history women were never involved in politics; somehow relates to them being bad at chesd
Women often ruled capably (Nefertiti, Boudica, Catherine, Elizabeth, etc) were politically involved throughout history ,and were likely some decision-makers in early societies, as temporary habits were likely determined by foragability.
They are not bad at chess. There are biased circumstances both social and epistemological that have prevented their involvement with the evolution of Chess. I think these chess people are more afraid of someone insulting Chess and in the process insulted a lot of people.
Yeah dude this was sarcasm, ain’t there a whole era named after a female ruler?
If you want my personal chess opinion they statistically do worse cause chess is nothing but a game of emotions now, and the old masters made sure they had less competition by making women an easy target. Idk why the whole tourney isnt done online if they want an actual representation of chess skill, not just the bachlorette type drama we got going on
I agree. I just think it’s detrimental to just shout that something is wrong as though it’s common sense without analysis or reasoning.
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No, I’m saying chess has been biased from the start and the games greatest players have been neurodivergent for a long time. Gender injustice is happening here, but it also has complex layers worth investigating, too. Like, how much of Chess’ DNA and evolution has been balanced based almost exclusively to satisfy traditionally male interests (domination, competition). How did the pieces and board change to fit the boys’ game.
Is it helpful the WNBA ball is smaller? I’d say yes, but not just in the obvious ways, but also in service of the meta game and to put the best product forward. There are extenuating circumstances. I was trying to say: the exclusion is so deeply entrenched in the historical male worldview that it might just need to have these debates and growing pains to become what it should be: fair and fun.
You could just say “I’m a fucking moron” and save yourself some time
This dude channeling his inner Radovid
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Why are men like this?
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The vast majority of times when men’s and women’s sports are separated it isn’t for the benefit of the men. It is because it would be a blow-out if the two sexes were together.
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Football? American Football has no restrictions on gender, it’s just that no woman can compete after puberty truly sets in. What that guys says is true about physical sports. Women can’t compete and never could. I can’t think of a single sport where a woman could outcompete a man in a physical sense. Even something like gymnastics, I think men still overcome the natural female advantage that comes from being small.
Chess from what I recall created a woman’s division because of the systematic biases and pressures girls faced. However, if I’m recalling correctly, it’s not particularly weird for a woman to complete in the open division. It’s just not a welcoming place for woman, so beginners often start in the women’s division. With that in mind I don’t see why transpeople shouldn’t be allowed. They wouldn’t be welcome much either in the open division, but also I’m not sure they’d be welcome in the women’s division either, so it’s kind of a wash.
If being good at Chess meant being smart, then a Raspberry Pi is smarter than every human on earth.
True, but we play chess differently than a computer. We play chess mostly by pattern recognition or planning. Computers typically play chess by brute forcing all options to find the one with the most highly successful results. The later is good with a lot of very stable memory, which humans don’t have.
Women traditionally have been discouraged from competitions, including chess. To speak in broad strokes, even in progressive locations around the world, there are still those who believe that traditional gender roles mean women should but compete. Men have a generational head start. We are at the stage where, in order to be equitable and fair, we should be creating extra opportunities for women. If we didn’t, tradition and systemic practices would continue to discourage women.
Chess has no male category. There’s open, and female. This allows an extra space for women to compete against each other, feel safe, and make connections and friendships with other women in the minority. While still allowing them to compete in the coed category on a level playing field.
We will most likely continue to be at this stage for generations.
Chess got an open class and a female class. The latter is there to provide a safer environment for girls and hopefully encourage more to try out the sport.
Why do girls need a safe environment when playing with boys?
Men can be nasty and intimidating towards women as history have shown a million times. Add in the fact you have a lot of “old fashioned” men in the sport that may not be up to date on how you should behave in the third millennium. If you want to grow the sport, you need to facilitate a safe and welcoming environment for everyone. Tournaments exclusive to girls is one way build towards that.
This is the first comment that made me understand why separate competitions are requires. Thank you.
Nerdy men playing a board game are intidimating? How do women even get anything in life done of they are this fragile? WTF? Do you also want separate women-only schools, and women-only companies?
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What is abusive about saying that women are strong and should play with men without issues?
Set a code of conduct and ban people who misbehave. Might lose some top players, but it’d be better for everyone else.
I mean, the real answer is that chess is full of toxic people who’ve made it to the top to run the organization. The fact that this behavior wasn’t curtailed already shows that. Its just an accepted part of it. If the ones who would make the decision to ban those players don’t already see an issue they’re not going to start now to make the space better for women.
Because without it very very few women will feel comfortable playing chess in a club.
And that is not a political statement or my opinion, just my observation from every single chess club I ever saw.
If I was a woman, I wouldn’t go there either.Because as we’ve proven times and times again when in presence of women, we’re a bunch of morons that can’t treat them with the respect they deserve.
Because they want one? Why are there woman only gyms?
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You seem hurt
Clarifications and comments (some pre emptive)
Chess has a women’s category to boost participation and spotlight female players.
Women can and do compete in the open category, which allows men and women. However, currently the highest rated women perform under the super closed “Super GM” level, so they participate in the tournaments that are less prestigious but fitting their rating. Male players like IM Eric Rosen also participate in such tournaments.
The best female player in history , Judit Polgar was 8th best in the world when taking both genders into account. There’s nothing stopping women from reaching the elite level in open chess. She even participated in the candidates tournament which decides who gets to play against the world champion for the world champion title. Unfortunately she didn’t perform too well, but it’s not because of her gender, she was basically beaten 2-1 (plus draws) by a male competitor, just like the other contestants in the round she was eliminated.
At her peak she had 2735 Elo points, making her 55th highest rated person in the history of organized chess. This is higher than one of the actual challengers to the crown, Nigel short.
Regarding the rulings:
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No one is going to pretend to be a woman, in order to convert the person’s identity with fide, they are required to have government issued paperwork saying they have transitioned. It’s not worth it.
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it’s funny that male to female transgender people are not regarded as women by this ruling, hence cannot participate in women’s events, but female to male transgender people also forfeit their women’s titles as they are not seen as women either. (To be fair, they can convert them to open titles, and get them back if they detransition officially)
So according to FIDE, transitioning from a man to a woman doesn’t make you a woman, you are considered a man, but also, transitioning from a woman to a man makes you a man, so you are also not considered a woman.
Seems paradoxical. You’d think they’d pick one and stick to it.
Also: chess does have physical advantages, but they seem to be reletive and not competitive. Most high level players have some sports regimen as it helps increase cardiovascular efficiency, but size of competitor doesn’t seem to matter as seen by David Bronstein and Mikhail Tal. Ian Nepomniatchschi intentionally lost weight for the world championship, and his ratings grew as a result.
Remember that whales are not necessarily more clever than humans even though their brains are huge in comparison.
So according to FIDE, transitioning from a man to a woman doesn’t make you a woman, you are considered a man, but also, transitioning from a woman to a man makes you a man, so you are also not considered a woman.
This is only confusing if you assume the two categories are equal, one for each gender. The anyone category has more relaxed rules. They could make a men-only category that is just as strict as the women-only category, but what for?
There is no men only category, there are only open (any gender can participate) and women’s (only women can participate).
The thing I find funny is how they treat transmen and transwomen differently. Like, if they want to say transwomen aren’t men , and they can’t participate in women’s events, they should also say that transmen aren’t men and can keep their women’s titles.
Gender is a spectrum, not one or the other. The women’s category excludes people in the middle. If you understand that, there is no inconsistency.
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Being a minority in any social setting brings difficulties that others just don’t otherwise face.
Having a women’s category for chess is a way of creating a safe environment for everyone to thrive.
Minorities like trans people? A place where everyone can thrive?
It’s fucking chess. I understand men may have more typical interest, but there shouldn’t be divisions based on sex or gender. Maybe divisions for some neurodivergent people, but I’d bet on many of the great chess players being neurodivergent in some way.
Only counter argument I can give you is have a bit of empathy.
Imagine that you were a young girl and saw this game. Chess. And you wanted to learn how to play.
The first person you asked was your mother and she told you oh that’s a boys game. But you still wanted to learn.
So you decide to just read up on the rules. You don’t really know anyone that plays. So you just kinda play vs yourself and redo. Old GM matches you found in old magazines. None of them are like you btw. They all seem like old men that live on the opposite side of the world.
You really like the game tho. And eventually you realize oh. There are actual clubs/tourneys near here I can go and play with actual people!
You go. And there’s not a single girl there. Because of all the hurdles you had to jump. Most others that would have been interested just quit.
So you get there. You are obviously underprepared because you didn’t have the support system that made learning it easy. Because of that you just get wrecked.
In addition to that you probably will have to hear some dumb jokes. That if you didn’t have such a rough patch to get there in the first place they might have been funny to you. But they aren’t. They just felt like you were being punched down.
Having exclusive tournaments and leagues is a very minor way of rectifying awful historical disparities. It’s not perfect and it’s not a solution by itself. But it’s absolutely needed.
If the gender ratio was something like 1:4 or less, you’d have an argument that everyone should just get along. But there’s like 16 times more men in chess than women and separate tournaments means the gals won’t have to learn chest thumping to deal with the asshole faction they can simply be catty which they already know how to do.
My apologies. I still don’t understand. Are you suggesting that women are too fragile to deal with men’s posturing, or what? It’s fucking chess. Unless someone is arguing there are blatant skill discrepancies between men an women, it still doesn’t makes sense why there are divided tournaments. Is the argument women are less strategically minded, or what?
What the fuck is this sexist shit? Women are inharently catty and men are inharently aggressive?
If there’s an issue with men being aggressive, there needs to be rules to prevent it. If the ratio is a problem, there needs to be tools created to address that. The solution isn’t “women are catty and sensitive, so they need to be seperate.”
I didn’t even realize chess had separated mens/womens events. I figured maybe a U18 and an open tournament. Is this par for normal? Or do most grandmasters etc compete at open tournaments?
Open and women, not men and women. The reason why there’s separate women competitions is so they have a space where they can compete without some men being disrespectful towards them as happens every time there’s mixed gender competitions.
People keep saying that, but its really more because there are currently no women at the highest levels. So if they didnt have their own tournaments their would be no women pro players.
Why are the categories women and open then instead of women and men?
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You’re exactly the kind of man that justify them having their own scene.
