With these new rules, FIDE has managed to
- Imply the mental inferiority of women
- Validate the existence of transgender men
- Destroy the integrity of awards record-keeping
- Call transgender women men
Very nice, FIDE, incredible mental gymnastics performance! 👏 Add them to the ever lengthening sports federation shitlist.
Woman here, and genuinely, I don’t know what’s right.
I can recognise that m>f after puberty gives someone a strength advantage but at the same time it’s hard enough having to transition without feeling even more marginalised by being banned from sports.
Maybe there needs to be just a women’s and open category to recognise the strength handicap that cis women have for certain activities and allow anyone to compete in open, but then there’s the challenge of prize money, viewers etc etc between the two that also needs to be managed appropriately.
At the end of the day, someone isn’t going to be happy and for that there is no good solution, but we need to be doing our best for cis and trans athletes to make sure everyone has a chance to compete in the sports they live.
Chess? Banning trans competitors is fucking idiotic and the chess federation can fuck right off with that implied notion of women being less capable.
I’m fairly certain that this is already the case, and what’s being done here as well. Specifically that there isn’t a “men’s” category, there’s open, and there’s women’s. In chess specifically it’s a strange situation. My understanding is that the existence of “women’s chess” isn’t due to any inferiority of play (though there’s undoubtedly some sexism in its origin) but rather as a way to entice women to play and grow the sport. There’s no restrictions on a woman being granted the grandmaster title, but a man can’t hold a Women’s Grandmaster title.
Not keeping your women specific titles as a trans man at least tracks for that. As to not being able to compete as a trans woman I don’t really see the point. I could see an argument for resetting your ELO because there is a lower ELO pool in women’s chess (due to population, nothing enforced) and your ELO could be unduly skewed, but idk. That’s kinda getting beyond my competitive chess knowledge
Tldr; this is probably dumb and misguided, but maybe not as hostile as the headline first looked to me
In most sports the men’s group is technically open. Most women just don’t succeed because of the sheer difference in physicality.
The solution is easy, just open more categories ciswomen, transwomen and anyone who identifies with the female gender. Same for men. Done.
Not enough people to make a meaningful category tho
Point is more categories are required now. Leave cis women as category then make other categories like open for all, trans people, people that identifies with the female gender, etc. Sure some categories might not have many competitors, but this way eveyone can play in the categories they feel comfortable.
The problem is that the way sports is funded is through competition and you can’t have competition without competitors. Small categories are inefficient and will be removed as a business decision. Also it’s kind of meaningless to say “I’m the best in X category” when there are 3 people in that category.
It might help you to understand that there has been a lot of study in many sports (for the very reason of your uncertainty).
Apparently, testosterone level (not birth gender) is the effective indicator of expected performance. In all women’s sports that allow trans competitors, trans individuals need to test **lower ** testosterone levels than are naturally allowable in cis women.
The issue is this. For someone trans to be willing and able to power through all the bullshit, they need to be uniquely dedicated and talented (or they’d just not do it). What that means is that unsurprisingly some trans individuals are absolutely phenomenal at a given sport.
Ultimately, there’s the problem. “We” seem to think a m>f individual doesn’t have an unfair advantage ONLY if they lose. So we’re not looking for the average or variance of skill, only the fact that there exists a trans individual that shines. It’s hard not to look at a trans woman winning and say “see, that’s what happens when someone born male competes with a woman in this sport”. But it’s also unscientific, as the science says trans women compete with comparative attributes to cis women.
Yeah, there’s no real defense to the two being separated in any league.