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.
The hard truth:
Studies have shown that being good at chess doesn't mean you're highly intelligent, it just means you really like chess.
Chess players are very easy to outsmart. They never expect a pawn to move diagonally 4 spaces and punch them in the face.
chess players really are the highest stage of international rules-based order dweebs
Ever see a smug
user compare something (from international politics to lobbying to warfare to "DRUMPF is in for it now" non-news) to chess? Same people, usually.
They also sometimes unironically end a post with "checkmate."![smuglord smuglord](https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/97a4a756-428f-4517-846a-1c810805ad28.png)
we're getting such a good mileage out of :smuglord: it has become my favorite emoji
Very handy now that Lemmy feds are a thing!
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Chess is yet another thing that was ruined by the fall of the USSR.
but the kind Vladimir Ilyich would shoot everyone here, including the chess nerds
i yearn to see magnus carlson swing from a petrol station sign
My pawn activates his Rage and charges the queen with his Greataxe. He gets advantage against nobility.
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Caveat: do NOT try that with a chess boxing player.
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I would say this is true of IQ tests as well. Like if you can get training in it and improve then it isn’t about innate intelligence at all
Someone tried teaching me but tbh I don't really have the attention span for lame and boring things. Games like Catan are way more fun.
I got a bit into chess as a kid and I'm a lot better than the average person and I fully agree, it's mid
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