World Chess Body Bans Transgender Women From Competing In Women's Events (bbc.com) 364
The International Chess Federation (FIDE) says it is temporarily banning transgender women from competing in its women's events. The BBC reports: The FIDE said individual cases would require "further analysis" and that a decision could take up to two years. "The transgender legislation is rapidly developing in many countries and many sport bodies are adopting their own policies," it said. "FIDE will be monitoring these developments and see how we can apply them to the world of chess. Two years is a scope of sight that seemed reasonable for the thorough analyses of such developments." It added that transgender players could still compete in the open section of its tournaments. In its policy decision, FIDE also said that trans men who had won women's titles before transitioning would see their titles abolished. Woman Grandmaster and two-time US Women's Champion Jennifer Shahade said the policy was "ridiculous and dangerous."
"It's obvious they didn't consult with any transgender players in constructing it... I strongly urge FIDE to reverse course on this and start from scratch with better consultants," Ms Shahade said.
UK MP Angela Eagle, who was a joint winner of the 1976 British Girls' Under-18 chess championship, said: "There is no physical advantage in chess unless you believe men are inherently more able to play than women -- I spent my chess career being told women's brains were smaller than men's and we shouldn't even be playing." She added: "This ban is ridiculous and offensive to women."
"It's obvious they didn't consult with any transgender players in constructing it... I strongly urge FIDE to reverse course on this and start from scratch with better consultants," Ms Shahade said.
UK MP Angela Eagle, who was a joint winner of the 1976 British Girls' Under-18 chess championship, said: "There is no physical advantage in chess unless you believe men are inherently more able to play than women -- I spent my chess career being told women's brains were smaller than men's and we shouldn't even be playing." She added: "This ban is ridiculous and offensive to women."
Nonsense on top of nonsense on top of nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
Multi-level nonsense:
1. There's no reason to ban transgender males or females from competing in whichever chess tournaments they so desire.
2. There's no reason for sex segregation in chess in the first place.
3. Gender ID ideology is a total crock.
Re: Nonsense on top of nonsense on top of nonsense (Score:3)
Agree.
UK MP Angela Eagle, who was a joint winner of the 1976 British Girls' Under-18 chess championship, said: "There is no physical advantage in chess unless you believe men are inherently more able to play than women
If there's no mental or physical difference between men and women with regard to Chess playing, why are there "Men's Events" and "Women's Events"? To continue to segregate competition based on gender implies (and perpetuates) the idea that there ARE differences between men and women, and that those differences have a meaningful impact on the "sport".
Re: Nonsense on top of nonsense on top of nonsense (Score:5, Interesting)
If there's no mental or physical difference between men and women with regard to Chess playing,
That is the politically correct "woke" viewpoint. It is also wrong. Women are a minority but still common at beginner ranks, fewer are intermediate, and only a rare few become grandmasters. The female world champion (Ju Wejun) has a ranking below over 400 male players.
If there wasn't a separate female division, women would be completely absent from competitive tournaments.
Re: Nonsense on top of nonsense on top of nonsense (Score:4, Insightful)
Not inferior, but different. Far fewer girls than boys are interested in becoming super chess players or become obsessed with chess. Why? Because girls' brains are different than boys' brains. For some reason, no one wants to accept that simple fact any more.
Re: Nonsense on top of nonsense on top of nonsense (Score:4, Informative)
Women are allowed to participate in men's chess competitions, and have been allowed for decades. Nobody is segregating them forcefully.
The issue is not average intelligence (Score:5, Interesting)
Multi-level nonsense:
1. There's no reason to ban transgender males or females from competing in whichever chess tournaments they so desire.
2. There's no reason for sex segregation in chess in the first place.
3. Gender ID ideology is a total crock.
The issue is not the average intelligence of men and women. The average intelligence is the same. That's not the issue, because average intelligence people don't win or even rank high in chess tournaments. It's the outliers on the exceptional side of the bell curve who win. The distribution of outliers for men is not the same as it is for women. There's more exceptional male players than there are exceptional women players.
Re:The issue is not average intelligence (Score:5, Insightful)
I dunno. In this current day of "DEI"....the goal is equal outcomes (equity), not equal opportunity (equality)....
Re:Nonsense on top of nonsense on top of nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
If that was the case why is there no mens category where women are not allowed to compete? There is only an open section and a women's section. Men who identify as women are correctly excluded from the latter.
Re: Nonsense on top of nonsense on top of nonsens (Score:4, Interesting)
Reason for women's division (Score:5, Informative)
I got curious a few years ago in regards to why on earth pro chess was segregated by gender. It's not a physical activity after all so men should have no advantage over women so why separate them, right? Now I dont know how legit this is but what I found from a few sources is that the purpose of the women's division is to better highlight women playing chess as female involvement in the game is much lower than male. The idea is that more high profile female winners might boost female involvement overall so by giving them their own division pro chess is guaranteed to have a first, second, third, etc. place woman to promote the game to other women with.
With this in mind it then sort of makes sense as to why they dont care if women want to play in the men's league but dont let men in the ladies league.
Re: Nonsense on top of nonsense on top of nonsense (Score:4, Informative)
Kilts.
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No, according to "law", a female has a uterus and a male has a penis. No one and no law cares about hormones.
Wow. My wife will be surprised to know she's no longer a female. You transphobes are idiots.
Re:Nonsense on top of nonsense on top of nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
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Absolutely. I was making the point in a snarky manner.
The alternative snark would have been "Very courageous of FIDE to make the point that women are more/less smart than men (take your pick) and therefore can't be allowed to compete in a purely mental competition".
Re:Nonsense on top of nonsense on top of nonsense (Score:4, Interesting)
If that were the case then they would be banning transgender men from competing in the men's event. I do not see any way to read this news other than the International Chess Federation having a rather sexist view of women's mental abilities. There is zero reason for separate gender categories in a purely mental exercise, every study I've ever heard of indicates that women have exactly the same average intelligence as men.
The top rated female chess player is ranked 89th. The reigning female world champion is ranked 404th by rating. 37 out of the 1600 world grandmasters are women. (or so it was of the end of 2020 [theconversation.com]).
That is just observational fact. I don't personally think that fact says anything about women's intelligence (there can be lots of factors that affect opportunity and rankings), but if you do, then that makes you the one with the sexist claim about them.
Now, given that material fact, if there is to be any chance for women to place e.g. 1st, 2nd, 3rd, compete fairly against one another, and to even have a world champion, it is just plainly necessary that they have their own league. Not a judgment, not a imposition of any kind of moral value, not a claim about intelligence or physical ability or really anything other than simply acknowledging the empirically true and presently existing distribution of competitive ranking. If you took *any* mixed group of A/B with a similar competitive distribution for *any* kind of ranked competition, you'd similarly have to form a separate league for B, assuming you wanted members of B to be able to win spots and matches as often as often as members of A.
And given the very large number of males in proportion to females, it doesn't much of a percentage willing to compete as females to dominate their category. It evidently may take only 1/400 doing so to deny them an opportunity at holding the championship. If you wish to go on with your inference of rankings to intelligence, then the only way that would not be true is if you also maintained that males who transitioned thereby became less intelligent - which I don't think you want to do.
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I do not see any way to read this news other than the International Chess Federation having a rather sexist view of women's mental abilities.
Meanwhile, the title of "Women's grandmaster" exists, and for a good reason.
Women have been participating in men's chess competitions for decades, and their results... let's say that they never managed to convince the chess federations to abolish the woman-only competitions.
There are two approaches to this, and neither is perfect. Either don't be sexist and make all tournaments mixed-gender, and have them dominated by men while women feel excluded and lose interest in chess, or be sexist but allow women to
Re:Nonsense on top of nonsense on top of nonsense (Score:5, Informative)
In a 2007 study at the University of Padua, male and female players of similar ability were matched up with each other on online games. When the players were unaware of their opponent's sex, female players won slightly under half their games. When female players were told their opponent was male, they played less aggressively, and they won about one in four games. However, when female players were told their opponent was female, even though they were actually male, they were as aggressive as the male players and won about one in two games. The researchers argued that gender stereotypes may have led female players to lower their self-esteem and self-confidence when they know they are playing male players, causing them to play defensively which worsened their performance.[18][16]
Re:Nonsense on top of nonsense on top of nonsense (Score:4, Informative)
If that were the case then they would be banning transgender men from competing in the men's event.
There is no mens event. There's an open tournament and a women's event (which allows women to play without having to deal with sexist arseholes who among other things congratulate women for playing like a man)
Re: Nonsense on top of nonsense on top of nonsense (Score:4, Insightful)
>it seems completely unnecessary to target such small minority of women like so; It's not a threat to the purpose of Womens' chess tournaments
First, they're not women. Whatever they claim to be is immaterial when scientific reality comes calling.
Second, a small minority becomes significant in rarified levels of competition. We've seen that play out in competitive sport, where a single male starts with a significant advantage over dozens or more females. While a turd may be a tiny fraction of the volume of water in a pool, it remains a turd in the pool. Mental illness and sexual fetishism cannot be universally accommodated.
Re: Nonsense on top of nonsense on top of nonsense (Score:4, Insightful)
Quoting from the source link you posted:
sex - In the study of human subjects, the term sex should be used as a classification, generally as male or female, according to the reproductive organs and functions that derive from the chromosomal complement [generally XX for female and XY for male].
gender - In the study of human subjects, the term gender should be used to refer to a person's self-representation as male or female, or how that person is responded to by social institutions on the basis of the individual's gender presentation.
So, translating into layman's language, sex is whether you're biologically male or female, gender is whether you feel that you are male or female. This committee then proceeds to say that the words that used to mean whether you're actually (biologically) male or female should now be used based on whether you feel (based on this recently-invented idea of gender as something different from sex) male or female.
This is a lot like saying that there is a thing where you have obtained a PhD from an accredited institution and another thing where you feel that you've obtained such a qualification (even though you haven't) and you should call someone a Dr. X based on their feeling rather than reality.
You can see how unscientific this is from the fact that they want the usage to be different between humans and non-human animals. From biology's point of view there is nothing particularly special about homo sapiens, we're just another animal species. In theory, this is just words you use and it doesn't matter. In practice, this is done because the word 'woman' has for centuries been used to describe actual (biological, of female sex) women, so when people use it, they think of this subset of humanity. The people campaigning for a change of definition hope that if the word 'woman' is also used to describe men (of male sex) who insist that they feel like women, people will think of them in the same way as biological women of female sex. You'll notice what a word salad I'm having to use to describe a thing that used to be described by two simple words, 'man' and 'woman'.
Re:Nonsense on top of nonsense on top of nonsense (Score:4, Insightful)
There's no reason for sex segregation in chess in the first place.
Yes there is, at least there is historically. The problem is about Chess being male-dominated, and existing winners in that Male-dominated environment play at a much high level than newer players.
That is an intimidating culture for Women to say the least. Thus the organization of all-Female events to create an environment where Women could actually compete in the game and come out as winners of tournaments; which 100% makes sense.
I've played chess competitively and I can say that at least from my observations, men's and women's competitions had the same culture. Also, they were often performed in the same buildings, in the same rooms, simultaneously, sometimes even on neighboring tables. There was lot of "male aura" flowing around, and the women didn't seem to mind. The purpose of all-female events has always been, IMHO, to let women a chance to be competitive.
As for the exclusion of Trans players from "Womens tournaments"... it seems completely unnecessary to target such small minority of women like so; It's not a threat to the purpose of Womens' chess tournaments,
That their numbers are small is irrelevant... Even one trans-woman participant who takes a medal can cause anguish in other women and demotivate them to further participate. It's very much a threat to the purpose of all-female tournaments, mainly because that purpose isn't what you think it is.
and its just an awful idea which emboldens bigoted hateful people who are opposed to the existence of trans-women in general, And seems to be in general a move aligned with what said bigoted individuals would like.
Quite the opposite actually. Participation of trans athletes in competitive sports is a very different issue from "existence of trans-women in general". I even dare to think that this issue mostly flies under the bigoted transphobes' radar. The pushback that you see (in chess and other sports) tends to be not from transphobes, but from normal decent people whose sense of justice has been challenged.
A naive question (Score:5, Interesting)
Why are there separate men's & women's chess events?
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Winner!
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Probably just more bell curve outliers on both sides amongst men, as has been seen elsewhere.
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Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Re: A naive question (Score:3)
Or perhaps that behaviour is tolerated in boys, but not in girls, along with other biases from a very young age leading to differences in behaviour.
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Because chess has a well documented history of not being accessible to women.
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Last I checked you can't take those into a professional tournament, and even if you did, it doesn't solve the rampant sexism of both the tournament organisers and the players.
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So women are banned from playing in the open chess tournaments?
Do you have a specific example where a woman was denied access to play a tournament game?
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So women are banned from playing in the open chess tournaments?
No. You don't seem to understand what accessibility means in terms of sexism within a sport. A woman is more than welcome to join any open tournament. But why would she. When you have men refusing to shake their hands, men turning into children because they were beaten by someone of the opposite gender, grandmasters saying the game shouldn't have women - to the female players, or commentators at ceremonies where a woman won congratulating said woman for playing like a man.
The women's division exist because
Re: A naive question (Score:3)
Put down the Kool-Aid and think about this logically.
What keeps women out of the Chess "world" today? Nothing. To compete in open competitions, all they need to do is beat their opponent, no matter what "plumbing" they were born with.
You can't argue women and men are equal in every way, then defend treating women and men differently because, well, they are different.
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No way to answer this without someone thinking you’re a misogynist.
Re:A naive question (Score:5, Insightful)
If men and women are inherently equal in intellect (as I believe they are — plz don't cancel me), but women are oppressed such that they aren't taught chess the same as men and thus deserve their own category, shouldn't we also have a separate category for socioeconomically disadvantaged people too? I mean a person growing up in a trailer park won't have the same access to top chess tutors as someone growing up the kid of someone who can hire personalized chess tutors.
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Clearly the additional muscle development gives men an advantage in chess.... /s
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There are only open and women's events. Men's events do not exist. Women's events exist because women wish them to.
Re:A naive question (Score:5, Informative)
It's actually super complicated. For whatever reason men are actually better at chess overall. By a 200pt margin.
So while it makes sense on the surface to just make chess gender neutral, the actual effect would be catastrophic for women. They would not even break the top-100 of players.
Source:
Men's scores: https://ratings.fide.com/top.p... [fide.com]
Women's scores: https://ratings.fide.com/top.p... [fide.com]
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Also, Norwegians are better at chess overall than Finns, by a similar margin.
Or is that just how things happen to be at the moment? Judit Polgar was a top ten player, that's enough to disprove any "men are inherently better" by anything more than a tiny margin. The reason there's only been one top ten woman in chess history is because it's very rare for women to play it obsessively enough to rise to the top and not be put off by all the rampant sexism. It really is quite similar to the way nations in which
Re: A naive question (Score:3)
Studies purporting to identify the 'female brain' in men who believe they are women don't hold much weight. They're small samples, and none I'm aware of have demonstrated a method of objectively identifying such a brain. If anything evidence goes very much against this, not least of all rates of sexual offences among supposed transgender women being far distant from the norm more women, more closely resembling males. Similar patterns emerge in interests and professions.
Is there a study that has demonstrated
Re:A naive question (Score:5, Insightful)
Why 'men seem to be better' is an important question. I have no answer. But 'men seem to be better' is a trivially easy observation. Look at world rankings and see how many women are in the top 100. We want to encourage women to play chess. It serves this purpose to have a separate women's category, gives them more attainable targets to aim for. If trans-women aren't happy competing against men, or want a cisgender-men free category, for the same reasons as we have a 'women' category, then we need a separate trans-woman category. But if being physiologically male has some advantage at the chessboard, as it would seem based on an inspection of the evidence, then trans-women likely have that advantage too, and so it is unfair on cisgender women, and defeats the purpose of the women's category, to allow trans-women to compete in it. Trans-rights aren't the most important thing in the world. Giving cisgender women their own category where direct competition with men would be demoralising to an extent (what's the point in aiming to be in the top 100, compared to aiming to be the champion) is far more important than trans-rights. It's just it may not seem that way to trans-rights activists, who seem to have no priorities in life except advancing the bee they have in their bonnet. So basically if we need a trans-woman category, create a trans-woman category, but don't shoehorn trans-women into a category for cisgender-women as if trans-women's rights to be considered women and be treated as women in every way is more important than cisgender women's rights to be treated apart from men in ways it benefits them to do so.
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Because men sometimes think with their dick, whereas women can not.
Ie, men and trans"wo"men have two organs for thinking, while women only one. That's a clear advantage.
By the way, every time recently I've seen a CPU missing performance it should nominally get, it was due to thermal issues. It's reasonable to assume same applies to our 2nd thinking organ -- wearing a skirt massively improves cooling compared to pants. Fuck pants, they might be good for horseback riding or for crawling under a truck, but definitely not for sitting at a computer. I've been wearing a skir
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Because there are way fewer women playing chess than men.
Now why do you suppose that is. Keep asking questions, the root cause it there even if you're desperately skirting around it.
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Because women don't like to play chess? Occam's Razor has spoken.
If you had another idea would you like to share?
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Yeah except there is an open field anyone can play and a women's only.
So, what were you going on about? There is no place in chess for men to hide from women who want to play them.
Re: A naive question (Score:3)
The women's events aren't there to punish women. They're there to make it competitive for them, so men don't take all the top spots.
The soft bigotry of low-expectations.
Yup, totally normal. (Score:2)
Transwomen, lose their titles.
Transmen, keep their titles.
what about local laws that may override this? (Score:2)
what about local laws that may override this?
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We do not submit to sharia law.
There is a clear difference in playing ability (Score:4, Interesting)
I think the chess body is onto something there, they have some smart people in their ranks.
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The top female FIDO rated player https://ratings.fide.com/top.p [fide.com]... does not even break first 100 of the top rated male players https://ratings.fide.com/top.p [fide.com]...
At the moment... though cracking the top 10 has happened in the past.
She never won against a healthy man.
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Re:There is a clear difference in playing ability (Score:5, Insightful)
"It is not improbable that a lower rated male player would suddenly change sex to try to get to the top."
Yes, yes it is. There is no way to "suddenly" change your sex. People keep throwing out these ridiculous scenarios that men will simple "change their sex" to win more, which does not happen. Being trasngender means more than just saying "I am the opposite sex" one day. The fact people like you keep pretending it is shows how little people understand the process.
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You just had that happen up in canada with weightlifting, multiple men, including one with a full beard, declared themselves as women and have now set women weight records.
In the USA you have had multiple convicted male rapists declare themselves as female and demaded they they be transfered to female prisions.
Heck you even have a failed male actor who decided to declare themselves as female and used that to make fun of women and came out earning millions.
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Except for the fact that bearded weightlifter wasn't trans at all. That is bad form by the competition to not have proper rules in place, not an issue with trans people. That would be like an adult entering a race for children because the rules didn't specify only children were allow to compete. This is very clearly a man taking advantage of the rules, not a trans woman doing anything. There is a difference between being trans and just deciding to say "I am a woman" and any trans person will fully agree wit
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Maybe that's just because less women play chess.
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There's a clear difference in player numbers. The reason females aren't in the top 100 is explained by simple statistics alone and has zero to do with biology.
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By simple statistics there should be a sprinkling of women in the top tiers.
If 10% of players are women then 10% of the top 100 should be women.
By simple statistics.
"better consultants" (Score:3)
"UK MP Angela Eagle, who was a joint winner of the 1976 British Girls' Under-18 chess championship" this is precisely what's being protected. She didn't win an open tournament. It's highly ironic she thinks protecting women's sport is offensive to women but defining them out of existence isn't.
Pretending this is about physical performance is dishonest. Men hold the lowest and highest end of the cognitive spectrum, we own the extremes this shouldn't be controversial at all.
It's a silly ban, but... (Score:4)
"There is no physical advantage in chess unless you believe men are inherently more able to play than women"
The fact that there's separate women-only tournaments would seem to indicate that lots of people believe just that.
Also, as good a time as any to shout out Judit Polgar [wikipedia.org], the highest-ranking female player of all time, who never bothered playing for the Women's World Championship and generally refused to compete in women-only tournaments.
Re:It's a silly ban, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
When I played chess competitively many years ago, we trained together with girls and there were many girls who were excellent. So nothing prevents females from playing against male players. Just when you get to the top, the gap is there.
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Its not the same reason that we separate MMA fighting although a female MMA athlete could kick your and my butt probably at the same time, doesn't mean they can compete at the same level against male MMA athletes.
I firmly believe women are just as smart as men, and while the men appear to be at the top of the rankings, that could just be because their are more men playing.
Either way they should play together, their isn't a short person basketball league that insists on pay equity, why should we pick gender
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The fact that there's separate women-only tournaments would seem to indicate that lots of people believe just that.
Not at all. Firstly the majority of tournaments are mixed. Secondly in those mixed tournaments sexism is rampant both by the organisers and the players. The existence of women only tournaments has more to do with providing women a way to actually enjoy playing without having to deal with some sexist cunts in the process.
Getting tired of it. (Score:4, Insightful)
So yeah women don't feel comfortable with a dude in a dress in their bathroom. Fair enough. So it became an issue when it wasn't. As for sports, I'm old enough to remember the off color jokes about Soviet women who were quiet manly competing in female events. But what changed is the push to normalize this. I'm sorry - it's not normal. Human biology is not a "social construct" no matter how much the snowflakes want it to be. To me it is simply a type of mental disorder; not something "stunning and brave."
Commence the down-mod fest!
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Look at the top 100 and how many women are in it. That's why we need a women category. If being cisgender male is an advantage, even if we can't pinpoint why, then from the point of view of women chess players' morale, we need a separate category, just as flyweight boxers need a category in which heavyweights can't compete. Just because a heavyweight boxer thinks he's really a "flyweight in a heavyweight's body" and "identifies as a flyweight" doesn't mean he should be allowed to "compete according to his '
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Here's what the chess federation, and other sport bodies do not realize: taking testosterone blockers and estrogen very much makes you a woman physically and mentally.
The loud mouthed, blue haired, sandal wearing (and usually fat) crowd, do not represent the actual trans community.
In fact, the quiet tr
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This thinking is a huge problem.
They are not women, they are wearing a costume and have a mental delusion. If they believe this claim then it will continue to be a problem for the rest of society when they interact with normal people.
Consider if they go out on a date with a man. If they do not state up front they are a man (which they are, Y chromosome and
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Consider if they go out on a date with a man. If they do not state up front they are a man (which they are, Y chromosome and all) that's deception.
sigh [novonordiskfonden.dk]
You're deceiving yourself, and it's boring to watch your delusion.
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These people are fragile and do a bad job of learning how to separate their personal lives from their private lives.
So I'm going to assume you meant "do a bad job of learning how to separate their professional lives from their private lives" otherwise your comment makes no sense at all. The question then is does your employer know whether you're a man or a woman? If they do (*) then you're doing just as bad of a job as 'these fragile people'.
(*) Remember your employer also has your social security information, including official first name, and they can cross check that against your appearance.
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As a post-operative transsexual since 1992, on hormones since 1991, I think if most people saw me in the men's room, there would be quite a commotion.
I have a sense that I am probably not built like you are. Being hypogonadal, and having needed to go off HRT at times, I have gone through more
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I am a rational person who's philosophy is live and let live. But when someone says I must use their pronouns or need my validation then that's where that ends. If I think you look like a chick, I'll call you a chick. If I think you're a dude (even if you have breasts) I'm going to call you a dude. Such is life. But these wackjobs equate words to violence. And that's where I get fed up.
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I am highly offended that you believe in gravity. Gravity is well understood among the educated to be a social construct. Where is this "gravity" anyway? Have you ever seen any? Held it? Put it in a bottle? No. There is no such thing.
Clarification (Score:5, Interesting)
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They would never win otherwise and likely many would be discouraged from playing.
Devil's advocate here: Why is "encourage women to play chess" a goal?
I'm not saying they shouldn't or oughtn't play chess, but considering all the resources being poured into propping this up, I think it's at least a fair question to address. Chess-playing isn't a fundamental human right. Being free to indulge one's passions certainly is, but if someone is only passionate about something when it's micromanaged to give them a safety-railed ersatz version of that thing, then maybe that passion itself is artif
Re: Clarification (Score:3)
>Devil's advocate here: Why is "encourage women to play chess" a goal?
It's a good question, and I agree with what you said about the consequences of assuming this 'encouragement' is the way to go.
It's noteworthy that countries with far less sex egalitarianism are over represented in female grandmasters. I see it as similar to programming. It tends to be a male dominated interest, likely because it better fits male personalities. While there shouldn't be barriers placed to women, the social constructionis
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Nonsense, if you are good enough to win you will win, there are plenty of men that are beatable by women. It more likely you will never become a great player if you never compete against great players.
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Or it could be because if women competed directly with men, they wouldn't break the top 100 ladder as has been shown here several times with facts.
Data driven? (Score:4, Insightful)
One would imagine that they have already done something like compare equivalent rankings between genders to determine if biologically male/female is a factor, and determined that it is.
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One would imagine that you are wrong. Women's tournaments exist only because of rampant sexism which made the sport unwelcoming to women. The majority of chess tournaments are open tournaments. In fact FIDE doesn't have a mens only tournament. The percentage of women playing open tournaments is statistically lower than it should be considering the number of women compared to men in the sport.
No one wants to play a sport where the opponent is a childish cunt who gets upset at loosing to a woman (something th
Boring old data. (Score:2)
Seems to me the barriers to entry for chess are about as low as you can get. https://www.chess.com/ratings [chess.com] contains many fascinating insights. Top Woman is on 2628, would beat the 129th male player, and the 14th U20, who is 17, (all above him are male, obviously). Therefore even a juvenile male brain is better at chess /for whatever reason/. I imagine transgenders will retain some of the advantage of the juvenile male brain at chess playing.
It's a strength issue. (Score:2)
To be fair (Score:3)
To be fair, the "primary" division in chess is open to all genders. There is no men only division. A man who transitions to a woman is welcome to continue playing in the same division as before. A woman who transitions to a man is naturally no longer able to play in the women only division.
I'm not saying it's perfect that way, just that it's nowhere near as onerous as some sports where people want to do inspections and blood tests (even genetic typing) to assign genders since chess' primary division is open to all.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
>If you go by the what we are told is the science then both sexs would have no issue competing equally
There are Bell curves involved, and the male and female curves do not have 100% overlap physically OR mentally.
Whether those differences are significant enough to justify splitting competitive chess by sex so that neither sex is left out completely I don't know... however I will admit that I am rather surprised the default for chess is to divide us up.
Re: (Score:2)
I think a better explanation would be "the bunch of old white guys that run the board don't want to have any risk of women getting anywhere". From a quick look at the FIDE board [fide.com] (can't link directly, click on the "Management Board" link) though there are actually a small number of women present and even a single non-white guy.
One thing that does stand out is the large percentage of slavic names on the board, given that region's what could mildly be described as conservative approach to inclusivity could t
Re: (Score:2)
I can see your reasoning, but it seems overly-cynical and their motivation appears to be the opposite. The tournament is split into sexes in the first place to increase the visibility of women and allow them to place more prominently than they would if it were completely open. Therefore banning trans women is an extension of this - they don't want the top 10 in the women's competition to be all biological males. Of course they may reverse this.
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Men do have a pretty significant advantage in physical activities, even pound for pound. Men can put on more lean muscle, shed fat faster and also can utilize more force out of those same muscles. There's a lot of inherent physical advantages that arise from experiencing a male puberty.
For chess though, yeah, just have a single league at the top level and let everyone sort themselves out.
Re: (Score:2)
With auto aim bots it doesn't matter.
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Re: Why even split? (Score:5, Insightful)
Women have had both advantages and disadvantage, like not being forced to go to war and die. If you are a man that likes looking after children you are severely disadvantaged, it depends on who you are and what you enjoy. If you diverge from that stereotype you are punished by society.
Throughout history the vast majority of both men and women have been the underclass. Also for most of history work was not sitting in an office or servicing customers coffee, it was back breaking work, which of course women did too. Would would you call the queen of England before she died underclass?
If you take everything you see, and warp it into looking like it disadvantages women, because you assume women are underclass, you simply magnify your bias that women are underclass.
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So what? I am sure the bell curve isn't the same for any two groups you pick by a random attribute, say hair color, color of skin, foot size.
What makes type of genitals any different.
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