Transgender women banned from women's chess events

Lots of threads and stuff on this kind of thing recently but this one makes zero sense to me, how does biological sex give you and advantage for a sport like chess? I can see how it does for most other sports hence me mostly agreeing with the sporting bodies, but not this one.

Can read more on the story here: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-66538328 (also on sky news, channel 4 news etc)

I don't agree with the body’s move on this one to the point where I didn’t even know that for a game like chess, there are male and female categories (as opposed to it all being mixed sex) but then again, I don’t play chess competitively.

I only play low level chess and my kids have always belonged to a club where boys played against girls. Unless there’s something I’m missing I can’t see the logic behind this.

I don't agree with the body’s move on this one to the point where I didn’t even know that for a game like chess, there are male and female categories (as opposed to it all being mixed sex) but then again, I don’t play chess competitively.

The "logic" behind this is much the same as all anti-trans initiatives. It's not about "fair competition" it's about making it so trans people are unable to participate in public life. The nonsense about sporting events and "fair competition" are just a way to wedge the issue in, and this is the next logical step for that process of systematized transphobia.

It's also worth noting even in "physical" activities, the claims about what womens bodies should or should not conform to in order to keep trans women out of competitions overwhelmingly also negatively impacts cis women of colour. The demands that women competing in competitions should have testosterone levels below a certain level, despite these being hugely variable in cis women and trans women (and some cis women may have higher T levels than trans women) directly leads to things like Caster Semenya being excluded from competitions due to her body naturally producing more T than other cis women. Meanwhile on the mens side, when Michael Phelps' body was found to naturally produce less lactic acid than others giving him an advantage, this was considered not only acceptable but something to celebrate.

The double standard is absurd and hurts all women, not only trans women - and is being used to materially harm trans people even outside of these events.

It's a widely debated issue. Objectively, there is no difference between a woman and man playing chess, intelligence-wise. The best example of this? The Polgars. The main reason you don't see more women players in the limelight is that certain people like to preserve the impression that chess is a 'gentleman's game'. The harassment women face is another strong deterrent. It's been the subject of much discussion in recent months. It's unfortunate, but true.

Side note: Open tournaments are mixed-sex.

Ye but that's only open tournaments, I think that sex categories for a sport like chess (unlike for most other sports) should go all together but then again my expertise in chess isn't that great.

In this case though it's woman playing against other women if we talking in terms of gender and not sex (cis women playing against trans women). For other sports e.g cycling, rowing, rugby, swimming (I think swimming as well but might be wrong), trans women are being banned from the women's category due to fairness (because of the unfair advantages biological men have over biological women) so at least here there's some worry and justification on what it could do to women's sports, but chess? Nah I don't see it unless we're taking the view that for every type of sport (including E-sports) you should always be segregated based on sex and not gender.

Maybe I'm misinformed though and this decision actually has some sense to it.

The "logic" behind this is much the same as all anti-trans initiatives. It's not about "fair competition" it's about making it so trans people are unable to participate in public life. The nonsense about sporting events and "fair competition" are just a way to wedge the issue in, and this is the next logical step for that process of systematized transphobia.

It's also worth noting even in "physical" activities, the claims about what womens bodies should or should not conform to in order to keep trans women out of competitions overwhelmingly also negatively impacts cis women of colour. The demands that women competing in competitions should have testosterone levels below a certain level, despite these being hugely variable in cis women and trans women (and some cis women may have higher T levels than trans women) directly leads to things like Caster Semenya being excluded from competitions due to her body naturally producing more T than other cis women. Meanwhile on the mens side, when Michael Phelps' body was found to naturally produce less lactic acid than others giving him an advantage, this was considered not only acceptable but something to celebrate.

The double standard is absurd and hurts all women, not only trans women - and is being used to materially harm trans people even outside of these events.

No one has seen the wisdom of this decision yet. I doubt there is any. (This includes GM's and WGM's.)

Many feel that tournaments should be mixed-sex. I don't see a problem with that. It again boils down to how chess is unfairly skewed towards men. Competitions with men will invariably have more prize money and coverage while a women's tournament of the same caliber will have less. Look at the 2023 WCC for men and women if you want an example. The prize money for women is almost half of that for men.

I’m probably one of the people that has been labelled trans phobic on the cycling, athletic, and swimming threads because I am vehemently against trans women in these kinds of sport where the trans has been through a male puberty and maintains certain biological characteristics that can’t be removed, BUT this is just silly!! Chess is an intellectual sport and unless we argue that men are naturally smarter than women, I really don’t see how or why a cis woman would feel in any way threatened by a trans woman in this situation. Similarly in rifle sports, snooker or darts I can’t think of any objection to trans sports people being included. These are games of skill not related as far as I know to speed, size or strength.
The initial inclusion of trans women in all women’s sports was imo a mistake and the committees concerned are changing the rules to account for the errors, but I really do believe that those making the rules are more concerned with adhering to some political agenda rather than using common sense, and this stupid ruling concerning chess players just proves it.

It's possible that men or women have a natural advantage in high level chess but I doubt that it's very significant. The rankings of the top female chess players is lower than the men's but that may just be because the talent pool for the women is much smaller i.e. for whatever reason fewer women play chess.

The FIDE analysis may end up showing this and then trans women could be allowed to compete again.

I strongly disagree that similar arguments in other sports are always transphobic. Of course they can be and people with these views are often those who shout the loudest.

As one example, if you take a sport like weightlifting, it is a statistical inevitability based on all the data that if trans women competed relative to their population then they would dominate the sport. As you say, you currently get natural variation that mean some athletes or countries/races perform better than others but that's the status quo and everyone accepts it. I believe that if we suddenly have a new group of women dominate a sport then it would discourage a lot of women to pick up that sport and probably would lead to more transphobia.

I am also concerned about equality and excluding a whole group of people from sport. So it's not a simple argument but I think labelling everyone on one side of the argument as transphobic isn't helpful.

Lots of threads and stuff on this kind of thing recently but this one makes zero sense to me, how does biological sex give you and advantage for a sport like chess? I can see how it does for most other sports hence me mostly agreeing with the sporting bodies, but not this one.

I think before discussing whether trans-women should be able to participate in a women's event, the more fundamental issue to consider is whether we even need women's events in the first place. We have sex-segregation in other sports for obvious reasons, but in chess there are plenty of men and women who are evenly matched, and there's no reason why they shouldn't compete together. As such, most chess competitions are mixed and most titles are gender-neutral. Why not make them all like that?

Well, the fact of the matter is that chess is still an extremely male-dominated sport. There has never been a female World Champion. Only one woman has ever been in the world's top 10, and only three have ever been in the world's top 100. I don't really know why. Maybe women are innately less likely to be interested in a game about war and battle, or they might face sociocultural barriers to entry, or there may be some small advantage in being biologically male after all. (It's interesting to note that women tend to fare better against men in online chess where they aren't told their opponent's gender, compared to over-the-table chess). Whatever the reasons, it still seems that in order for a woman to reach the same level as a man in elite chess, she needs to be more exceptional than he does.

I suppose we have women's events and titles because FIDE has decided that it's worth recognising and rewarding females for being just as exceptional, even if it doesn't actually result in them reaching the same level as men. It may also be a way of encouraging women into chess and increasing their visibility and representation. It's still a somewhat debated issue though. Some women reject titles like "WGM" (Woman Grandmaster) and consider them patronising. Some people believe that women's only events might lower the ambitions of women from competing against and matching men at the highest level. I don't really know enough about this to form a strong opinion myself.


My view is this: If we are to have women-only events and titles, then it makes more sense for the eligibility criteria to be based on something objective (e.g. biological sex) rather than purely being a matter of self-identification. Self-identification just means that men can become eligible simply by saying they're trans, even if they're not really. In that case the event may as well just be billed as gender-neutral, because that's what it effectively is. Eligibility criteria don't mean much if anyone can just unilaterally decide that they've met them, with no challenge or verification. The same goes for any other special category.

It's possible that men or women have a natural advantage in high level chess but I doubt that it's very significant. The rankings of the top female chess players is lower than the men's but that may just be because the talent pool for the women is much smaller i.e. for whatever reason fewer women play chess.

The FIDE analysis may end up showing this and then trans women could be allowed to compete again.

I strongly disagree that similar arguments in other sports are always transphobic. Of course they can be and people with these views are often those who shout the loudest.

As one example, if you take a sport like weightlifting, it is a statistical inevitability based on all the data that if trans women competed relative to their population then they would dominate the sport. As you say, you currently get natural variation that mean some athletes or countries/races perform better than others but that's the status quo and everyone accepts it. I believe that if we suddenly have a new group of women dominate a sport then it would discourage a lot of women to pick up that sport and probably would lead to more transphobia.

I am also concerned about equality and excluding a whole group of people from sport. So it's not a simple argument but I think labelling everyone on one side of the argument as transphobic isn't helpful.

I can understand you’re point of view but I think I’d (Toad) lean more to scrapping gender categories for a sports like chess, or if we’re going to group people based on biological sex, do it for every sport and not only some.