Funny, I thought chess players were supposed to be intelligent—observant, capable of long-term planning, adept at strategy, those kinds of things.
That’s one more stereotype to discard. The people who run international chess competitions have just outed themselves as morons. The International Chess Federation, or FIDE just banned transgender women from competing in men’s chess tournaments and stripped trans men of women’s chess titles they won. The body revealed its guidelines for transgender competitors this week, thus highlighting its long-running idiocy.
Okay, fine: defining the gender of chess players by their chromosomes would be a solution to a problem if there were a problem, but there isn’t. There is no reason to segregate female and male chess players except ancient prejudice and ignorance—well that, and if it is decided that the fewer little chess players conceived, the better.
Chess is not a game that involves sexually-based characteristics or advantages. The idea that chess is a male’s game imposed itself on my consciousness when I ran my high school’s chess club, and discovered that the unanimously male players on other teams always assumed that my sister, who was on our team, would be a pushover—until she beat the living crap out of each and every one of her male opponents. The hoary stereotype is indistinguishable from the now debunked fiction that men are intrinsically smarter, more perceptive, more competent and more competitive than members of “the weaker sex,” who were put on Earth to have babies, cook and stand by their men.
There is no reason at all for there to be separate men’s and women’s chess tournaments and titles. Blacks-only and whites-only chess tournaments would make as much sense, which is to say, none. Who cares what a chess player “identifies” as? What matters is how well they play variations of the Sicilian Defense, and the rest.
Is it possible that the members of FIDE didn’t watch “The Queen’s Gambit”?
Or perhaps they did, but just didn’t understand it….
_________________
Pointer: Other Bill
Ethics Alarms 
Funny how something right in some ways can be just wrong. This is almost something out of a Jonathan Swift piece.
So these chess people, who are presumably intelligent, cannot understand the difference between a transgender athlete in a sport where muscle, mass, and strength are paramount in success and a transgender game player where those factors are utterly irrelevant.
What next, will professional video game organizations ban transgenderism?
Mercy me.
I trust the same sort of mental and prejudicial disorders that now affect Chess Competitions will never find their way into the likes of Van Cliburn, Chopin, and other major Piano Competitions. Will this insanity ever end?
Long time lurker here! I guess this is something I can talk about.
Women are not barred from competing with men. The two categories these days are Open and Women. Historically players like Judit Polgar (the real life ‘Queen’s Gambit’ player) and Hou Yifan competed solely in the ‘male’ Open category and are well respected. Those two decided not to compete in the Women’s category at all. (Well Hou Yifan started out there and then got bored constantly being the Woman’s World Champion).
The problem, I guess, is the existence of the Women’s category. It’s always been a second class citizen in the chess world. The requirements for the title ‘Woman Grandmaster’ are the same as for a ‘Master’ title in the Open category – the *lowest* title in the Open category. It’s the *Women’s* category that FIDE are banning trans-women from competing in. Honestly, logically speaking, I can understand this since allowing trans-women to play in the women’s category pretty much obviates the reason for a women’s category at all.
Hou Yifan thinks that part of the problem is the Women’s category itself. She feels women are encouraged to lower their standards and only compete in that category rather than aiming higher for the Open category.
I don’t have any real conclusions to draw here, just wanted to add some background.
Great background, and “The problem, I guess, is the existence of the Women’s category” is pretty clear. I can understand the junior category, even though the best young players can compete against the adults. Not the women-only competitions, though.
To people who say post adolescent guys can compete in women’s sports, I say, “Fine. You win. Let’s abolish all women’s sports and have only sports. Let’s abolish the gender gap in sports competition and compensation. Anybody can play. May the best competitor win. Happy now? If you’re not, you’re full of it.” As one of Mrs. OB’s English as a third language boss was fond of propounding, “You cannot have your cake and eat your cake unless you bake yourself another cake.”