- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
The world’s top chess federation has ruled that transgender women cannot compete in its official events for females until an assessment of gender change is made by its officials.
You must log in or register to comment.
Silly question, why does chess, a mental activity, need gendered leagues?
Chess at pro level is brutal. One can get mentally mauled if the adversary has a superior, trained for cruel psychological warfare, mind.
Men just don’t stand a chance.
Because the whole idea of gendered leagues in games that ultimately don’t matter at all is about segregation and control, not physiology.
Bring on the down votes from the “but muh sports 'tegridy!” clowns.
Edit: some of yall need a class on statistics lol
I don’t really follow. Do you mean only non/minimally physical competitions or all competitive sports/games/activities?
For things like chess, fishing, and spelling bees gender segregation doesn’t make sense. But for things like martial arts or weight lifting I think it makes sense.
It at least makes sense if the goal is competition between roughly similar groups of participants, and not just a single open class dominated by a particular physiology.
Why not set up divisions, among sports where the physiological differences do matter, based on the actual weight, strength etc of the individual participants, whatever traits are relevant to that sport, rather than by gender? Even if the average woman and the average man have, say, a strength difference, there are still going to be some women who are evenly matched with some subset of men, after all. I feel like such a system, if done well, could make things more competitive than simply sorting by gender, because it enables sports where the people who are not on the stronger end of what their gender is capable of to still face equivalent opponents, and would remove the whole reason for debate regarding trans athletes, because they could get put into the same categories as anyone else without their identity being invalidated or having any relevance to their performance.
There are tons of ways to makes sports more inclusive. The issue has never been “we’re all out of ideas,” but rather “we’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas.” Also “tRaDiTiOn”
I think the highest rated woman is 2628, she wouldn’t even be in the top 100 which would require a rating of 2644.
With current rating, not a single women would have a chance to play in international tournaments, if there only was one league.
So is your argument that women are inherently inferior at chess or…?
No, at least not in the sense that they are stupid.
Boys tend to be more interested in chess at a younger age, unless you start playing chess professionally at a very young age you are probably never going to a top 100 player.
It’s similar to why very few women become top tier in e-sport, they don’t typically have that interest at a very young age.
What you have just said is that there is a cultural difference and I agree with that. Dont confuse that with a difference based on sex, or physiology, in other words.
Obviously, men and women on a 1:1 basis have equal potential to excel at chess, based on their sex, right?
Women and man are in the same league, the league isn’t for just man, there just isn’t any women with high enough rating to be in the top 100.
There is a special league just for women where man can’t compete.
I can’t help you to understand the difference between cultural statistics and physiological potential I guess lol
You did see the numbers? I mean, what else do you need?
Anyone know what the highest rated trans male and trans female chess players are? Would be interesting to know if this rule is even currently necessary.
I can’t find any trans men ranked, but the highest rating I can find for a trans woman is Natalia Pares Vives with a ranking of 2213, or about 325th on the chess.com women’s rankings.
You basically have chess and women’s chess. Anyone can play chess, both men and women, but only women can play women’s chess.
The removed the titles from transgender players who won titles in women’s chess.
If you get rid of womens leagues, the olympics will be 99% man. Very inclusive.
In girl chess the pieces are pink.
All of the pieces. On both sides of the board. Mentally it’s much more taxing keeping track of which pieces are yours. We guys have it really easy with the whole black/white pieces.
And on average, they only start out with 80% of the pieces of the men’s set.
shaun did an excellent video on exactly this. TL;DW: stereotype threat & harassment.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=ZHFZOXiM9SM
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
As is tradition
Fucking hell some of us can be idiots…
Have you met chess bros?
I can see why women would want their own league.
The average chess bro is not a trans woman.
The average trans woman chess player was assigned chess bro at birth.
It doesn’t in principle, and it’s not really either.
There is the main league, which is open for everyone, and an extra league for women only to offset the male dominance of the main league.
Why they feel the need to exclude trans women from that I have no idea. Even many of the physical sports allow trans women under certain conditions and only to prevent any unfair advantage due to increased muscle growth during puberty.
Because otherwise women couldn’t currently compete beyond the local level. But I don’t have an explanation for the difference in playing levels beyond the fact that much fewer women seem to be interested in playing Chess competitively.
So you’re saying that women are not as smart as men?
No. First of all Chess has nothing to do with being smart in any sense I would use the word.
Otherwise a Raspberry Pi would outsmart all of humanity.Secondly, it’s much more similar to why the Faroe Islands can’t compete in soccer with France.
Nothing suggests they have less natural talent for soccer (and it’s quite popular there), but there’s just 1/1000 the number of players to draw from.There is an open bracket (where anyone can play) and a womens bracket, currently women do not perform well enough to play internationally in the open bracket. What they are stating are merely facts. And really were it not for the existence of the womens bracket it is possible that women would perform even worse.
So women can play chess without the added mental burdens that come along with being a women in a male dominated space.
Women gated off their league because every their move is commented on as a female one. They can’t fail for it’s deepens the stereotype of women=stupid and they can’t win for it’s just man wasn’t paying attention or played easy for her. The lack of women chess clubs and championships, the stereotype of it being not a sport for women is why there aren’t many high ELO players in this isolated and weird situation.
One of the last strongholds of a fragile male nerd supremacy, that’s all.
Women have more places to hide the sex toys.
Edit: it’s a bad joke referencing the recent cheating scandal
Yeah I don’t get it either
That’s exactly what I was thinking.
Women are scared of weak nerdy men or something…
Lol, literally the only game where physical size, bone density, lung capacity and muscle strength does not matter is keeping men and women separate! Haha… In chess there should be no separate category for women, unless… Unless… Unless we believe that women are less smarter than men.
Chess got an open class and a female class. The latter is there to provide a safer environment for girls and hopefully encourage more to try out the sport.
Why do girls need a safer environment when playing with boys?
Because as we’ve proven times and times again when in presence of women, we’re a bunch of morons that can’t treat them with the respect they deserve.
Men can be nasty and intimidating towards women as history have shown a million times. Add in the fact you have a lot of “old fashioned” men in the sport that may not be up to date on how you should behave in the third millennium. If you want to grow the sport, you need to facilitate a safe and welcoming environment for everyone. Tournaments exclusive to girls is one way build towards that.
This is the first comment that made me understand why separate competitions are requires. Thank you.
Set a code of conduct and ban people who misbehave. Might lose some top players, but it’d be better for everyone else.
I mean, the real answer is that chess is full of toxic people who’ve made it to the top to run the organization. The fact that this behavior wasn’t curtailed already shows that. Its just an accepted part of it. If the ones who would make the decision to ban those players don’t already see an issue they’re not going to start now to make the space better for women.
If you want to grow the sport, you need to facilitate a safe and welcoming environment for everyone.
Hm. In addition to a welcoming environment it might be fun to have a ‘cutthroat’ class with an opposite approach where intimidation, bullying, and over-the-top shit-talking is encouraged. They could have competitors come out in like pro-wrestling gear or something and have a stare-down at the beginning of the match.
Nerdy men playing a board game are intidimating? How do women even get anything in life done of they are this fragile? WTF? Do you also want separate women-only schools, and women-only companies?
Holy fuck. Stereotype often?
Because without it very very few women will feel comfortable playing chess in a club.
And that is not a political statement or my opinion, just my observation from every single chess club I ever saw.
If I was a woman, I wouldn’t go there either.Because they want one? Why are there woman only gyms?
deleted by creator
You seem hurt
If being good at Chess meant being smart, then a Raspberry Pi is smarter than every human on earth.
True, but we play chess differently than a computer. We play chess mostly by pattern recognition or planning. Computers typically play chess by brute forcing all options to find the one with the most highly successful results. The later is good with a lot of very stable memory, which humans don’t have.
The vast majority of times when men’s and women’s sports are separated it isn’t for the benefit of the men. It is because it would be a blow-out if the two sexes were together.
Uhm, what? Please provide some examples.
Football? American Football has no restrictions on gender, it’s just that no woman can compete after puberty truly sets in. What that guys says is true about physical sports. Women can’t compete and never could. I can’t think of a single sport where a woman could outcompete a man in a physical sense. Even something like gymnastics, I think men still overcome the natural female advantage that comes from being small.
Chess from what I recall created a woman’s division because of the systematic biases and pressures girls faced. However, if I’m recalling correctly, it’s not particularly weird for a woman to complete in the open division. It’s just not a welcoming place for woman, so beginners often start in the women’s division. With that in mind I don’t see why transpeople shouldn’t be allowed. They wouldn’t be welcome much either in the open division, but also I’m not sure they’d be welcome in the women’s division either, so it’s kind of a wash.
Women traditionally have been discouraged from competitions, including chess. To speak in broad strokes, even in progressive locations around the world, there are still those who believe that traditional gender roles mean women should but compete. Men have a generational head start. We are at the stage where, in order to be equitable and fair, we should be creating extra opportunities for women. If we didn’t, tradition and systemic practices would continue to discourage women.
Chess has no male category. There’s open, and female. This allows an extra space for women to compete against each other, feel safe, and make connections and friendships with other women in the minority. While still allowing them to compete in the coed category on a level playing field.
We will most likely continue to be at this stage for generations.
deleted by creator
Sorry to be contrarian here, but at the high competitive level chess is a cardiovascular challenge. If you listen to serious chess players talk about playing it’s not just a simple mental exercise.
High performing chess players have a higher HRV. Chess grandmasters might be sitting still but their body is undergoing a high degree of stress. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2019-14359-001
Men statistically have higher HRV on average, and the outliers are even more extreme. https://www.whoop.com/ca/en/thelocker/normal-hrv-range-age-gender/
So when you enter into a competitive environment it’s just nicer to know you have a MORE level playing field.
I know chess specifically is controversial with regards to gender stuff and I’m not saying it’s perfect. I’m just saying that there are real reasons to support separate brackets.
Hold up. I’m not super experienced in reading studies, but I can read.
-
At best this is correlation. HRV increasing for these men doesn’t mean a high HRV is required to be good at chess.
-
Sample size of 16… And only male.
HRV was reduced in participants who achieved worse results. This could indicate the possibility of HRV predicting cognitive performance
If reduced HRV means lower cognitive performance and women have, on average, lower HRV, you’re saying women are less smart. At least in chess. I think that’s bullshit and this study isn’t incorporating enough/the correct data to show anything you’re stating.
But here is one: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0149763411002077 that links HRV with stress response
And another: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0149763419310292 That shows women’s HRV responds less severely to stress.
Both meta-analysis, not a single data point.
So maybe men are just shit at dealing with stress and that’s why their brains go haywire during competition. But it’s so gracious of you being so kind to women and giving them a space where they can play among equals on a “MORE level playing field.”
By your logic, they should just be testing people’s HRV and ranking them that way so they all are on even ground. Give those dummy men a MORE level playing field.
Heh, TIL chess is cardio.
But as a person whos heart rate also increases while playing competitive board games, I can say the heart rate increase is usually due to adrenalin because I was blindsighted and I am in danger of not getting my ‘easy win’ or a toddler like rage at my predictions going wrong. YMMV.
Remember the chess player accused of cheating via anal dildo?
Also remember Petrosian? He spawned a whole bot over on AnarchyChess.
Pretty sure those two’s heart rates had nothing to do with increased bloodflow to the brain to make calculated decisions.
Having my ass handed to me in chess (amateur level) by women a couple of times makes me think that maybe the segregation is to protect men, rather than women. Or I might just be a bad chess player.
Why, if Petrosian had gone berserk on women instead of men, he probably would have had a huge reputation hit. With a bot quoting him for all internet eternity or some stuff like that. Oh, wait.
-
Well… this is certainly enough bullshit to make the crops grow
Removed by mod
Pretty typical for here to see a post with actual sources and instead of people doing their own research they instead want to downvote and dog-pile. You can be upset with the outcome but there are reasons behind it (and it’s not just them jumping on the trans bashing bandwagon, they outlined exactly why it was done and how it works for male-female transitions and vice versa)
It’s not an “actual source”, it’s a shit source. N=16, really? Barely qualifies as a study.
Wow. Looks like people can’t handle facts huh.
Not less smarter, just able to treat chess like it’s more important than survival. I think the abstraction/maladaptive traits required for excellence at the very edge are more commonly observed in men that care, unwisely, only about results and that the ends justify the means, however stupid or insane.
Also, chess is a war/power-fantasy boardgame whose rules and dynamics were likely invented by and for men, and could be inherently biased.
You could just say “I’m a fucking moron” and save yourself some time
Why are men like this?
This dude channeling his inner Radovid
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/bmnC-yaOHkM
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
This just in: throughout all of history women were never involved in politics; somehow relates to them being bad at chesd
Women often ruled capably (Nefertiti, Boudica, Catherine, Elizabeth, etc) were politically involved throughout history ,and were likely some decision-makers in early societies, as temporary habits were likely determined by foragability.
They are not bad at chess. There are biased circumstances both social and epistemological that have prevented their involvement with the evolution of Chess. I think these chess people are more afraid of someone insulting Chess and in the process insulted a lot of people.
Yeah dude this was sarcasm, ain’t there a whole era named after a female ruler?
If you want my personal chess opinion they statistically do worse cause chess is nothing but a game of emotions now, and the old masters made sure they had less competition by making women an easy target. Idk why the whole tourney isnt done online if they want an actual representation of chess skill, not just the bachlorette type drama we got going on
And they also made it so trans men have to give up any women’s titles they’ve earned. So, they simultaneously think trans men are men, but trans women are not women.
If anything, based on the past comments of the head of the organization, they have a position that’s generally “women are dumber than men and we want to make decisions that align with that ethos always”.
I’ve stopped being surprised by chess dorks after it came out that America’s Champion, Bobby Fischer, our Hope Against The Commie Gameplaying Menace was literally a neo-Nazi and not subtle about it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Fischer
Holy crap that was a wild read. Jewish Mother but a Holocaust denier. Died in exile in Iceland while evading criminal deportation to the US. I had this vague memory that he was an asshole but I had no idea.
America supporting fascists, because they are anti-communist, has looooong history.
Fascists 🤝 Capitalists
At least for the first stage of the tumour.
And the terminal stage.
It might have evolved, but Mussolini’s fascists initially made their money being hired thugs for the wealthy and industrialists who wanted to directly attack and scupper organising workers.
Similar in Nazi Germany with the Brownshirts iirc.
I guess under Neoliberalism you can kind of just skip the street gangs and use cops to attack unionists, so it’s a different set of material conditions these days but the patterns are there.
He also had schizophrenia, most probably.
I’m more partial to Kasparov myself.
None of y’all are getting it. Trans women have an unfair advantage in chess because they can turn the king into another queen.
That would put the chess judges into a paradox and their mind would lock up, requiring a visit to the ICU. Because trans pepople can only do that, thay are “a danger to the whole chess community” /s
Trans men can do the opposite, but that’s way less useful…
To be clear, the head of FIDE is this guy with close ties to the Russian fascist state.
And the CEO is Emil Sutovsky, who recently made a twitter poll, basically asking, let’s be honest, does anyone actually care to watch this women’s tournament? When he never made a similar poll for any other tournament.
The chess world really needs to outgrow the sexist and transphobic FIDENo wonder the “gender change” wording of their new rules is so similar to the new Russian law that essentially bans transitioning.
One can imagine that every oligarch who wants to suck the milk of Mr. Putin is required to demonstrate loyalty periodically by pissing in the eyes of one of Mr. Putin’s designated targets. LGBTQ+ is just one of those.
Ugh, why do they feel the need to even write these rules in the first place? I can almost guarantee you there’s like, five trans people who are even registered to play chess. Why go to so much effort to block such a fraction of a percent of people anyways?
Whenever I read articles like these, I substitute “trans” for a different minority, such as a racial or ethnic minority, and it really puts it in perspective.
I remember when Utah made a huge deal about it in women’s sports. And someone like the Utah governor was against it, saying he’d never seen so much hate around something so little. He told his colleagues that in the entire state, only four trans youth were even playing registered sports, and most were JV, not even going to competitions. It’s sad to see people so stoked by hate for something so…mundane. :/
I guess you can look at it from various angles:
-
At first, I thought it was sexist to separate genders in chess competitions to begin with. Like, it’s not weight lifting or boxing, as
you*others *(oops) said. Why does it matter what I have in my pant(ie)s as I move my pawn to e4? -
But I imagine female players weren’t as great at the start, considering they didn’t get to compete with the best of the best for years like males could, so it would have been unfair to throw them into a pool of lava to outswim such asbestos sharks as Kasparov. So alright, let them have their own kiddie pool until they grow their own prodigies.
-
But it’s been decades. Does it really matter what gender they are? If not: stop separating them. If it does, that assumes male and female brains are built different (I doubt that, but I’m in no way an expert, so let’s assume). At least different enough to differ in chess skills. Now, if I’m a dude, I play chess competitively for 20 years and then I go through a surgery, does it change anything at all in terms of chess skills? AFAIK hormone therapy takes some time, so it’s not like I could turn into a dudette overnight. Even if I do, what does it change about my neural structure? So I start in a new female chess competition because I consider myself a female. It’s just me, nobody else out of the 200 contestants, so what does it matter? Now, if the above is true, I start with a noticeable advantage - an advantage over 199 other conestants.
-
However, I started the whole reasoning process by assuming female and male brains are noticeably different in terms of chess performance. If that is not true, why are there still separate women’s and men’s events?
I’m sure there’s more to it, and I’m just not informed well enough, so the question is honest, and I’m actually curious.
The older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve noticed how similar people are, regardless of gender. Sure, different genders might approach problem-solving differently, but I’ve had great teachers that were both men and women. Some of my best professors have been women.
Maybe they have different gender pools for scholarships or something, but even going back to the original thing…trans people make up a fraction of a percent most likely. I don’t see this really becoming a problem. Spend your energy on making chess more appealing for everyone or something.
I also don’t know much about brain development by gender, though aside from the speed of development (women develop faster than men), I can’t imagine there’s really that much of a difference once everyone hits puberty.
I was thinking the same of the brain stuff, BUT: the ‘fraction of a percent’ argument may get irrelevant (at least in the general sense) quite fast if (and I’m going to exaggerate a lot here) you put a dinosaur in a chicken coop with 9999 other chicken. The dinosaur is just .01% of the population, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Similarly, if instead of chess you take wrestling and let one male heavy weight champion put on a tutu and start in a 100 contestant female competition, he may ram through everyone, regardless of how small fraction of the population he is. But again: speaking specifically about chess, I also find it ridiculous that they barred transgender women from female chess events.
-
The same people claiming transwomen would ruin women’s sports were celebrating when the U.S. women’s team lost the World Cup.
I’ve been on Lemmy for a couple of months now - best comment I’ve read so far. You absolutely nailed it.
Because the point is to eschew hatred towards people who are different. Since they can’t have a “no black people” rule anymore, they target another vulnerable minority community.
Because Amy Scnider now owns all the women’s jeopardy records?
Take what you want from that, I don’t really have an opinion on trans people in pure intellectual competitions.
this makes sense because cis women have such small bones they can’t reach past the centre board, giving most trans women and tall cis women an inherent advantage. /s
what the fuck chess this is just blatant transphobia
deleted by creator
It’s transphobia and misogyny. Because it implies that men are smarter than women.
Removed by mod
average @mtgzone user
What? Is this real? Are the men and women not competing together? It is not a physical competition. Why the separation?
Why is chess even seperated by gender? Its a completely non physical.
The environment around men favors them to be stronger than women. If there were no women’s category, there would only be men playing chess and very very few women and that would sucks.
I think it’s to give the top women a platform, for young girls to see people like them on the TV and make them believe they can do it too. If enough young girls start playing and keep playing, there should be plenty of female players that can compete with the best men in short order. There are also women’s titles that have lower requirements than men’s. It’s a pretty controversial thing; some women refuse to take the “lesser” WGM title over the open IM title.
I’m not saying this works or I agree with it, but that’s the thinking.
Because it’s already a sausage fest
Some men are smarter than others, if men can see that. Then why can you see that in average, specially in this high level competition, men are just smarter than women? Top 5 women dont even rank in the top 100 men’s category.
Plenty of enlightened gents hitting the thread here to rubbish the need for a women’s category whilst simultaneously demonstrating the need for a women’s category
This place feels more like Reddit every day. Incidentally I notice also that Lemmy has inherited Reddit’s rule that every commenter is assumed male until proven otherwise. For a few days this place seemed like it might turn out different. Oh well.
can you explain this a bit more? I’m not seeing it
Double_A Nerdy men playing a board game are intidimating? How do women even get anything in life done of they are this fragile? WTF? Do you also want separate women-only schools, and women-only companies?
Rbmellor Tf are they in separate groups for? Don’t girls know how sexy they look playing cheers?
System_glitch And the real reason is because women don’t do well against men. They get dominated except for a very small minority. So I orde for women to have more parity, they have women’s chess A biological man competing with them is, statistically, a huge advantage.
Two others I recall have been since been removed
Etc
Clarifications and comments (some pre emptive)
Chess has a women’s category to boost participation and spotlight female players.
Women can and do compete in the open category, which allows men and women. However, currently the highest rated women perform under the super closed “Super GM” level, so they participate in the tournaments that are less prestigious but fitting their rating. Male players like IM Eric Rosen also participate in such tournaments.
The best female player in history , Judit Polgar was 8th best in the world when taking both genders into account. There’s nothing stopping women from reaching the elite level in open chess. She even participated in the candidates tournament which decides who gets to play against the world champion for the world champion title. Unfortunately she didn’t perform too well, but it’s not because of her gender, she was basically beaten 2-1 (plus draws) by a male competitor, just like the other contestants in the round she was eliminated.
At her peak she had 2735 Elo points, making her 55th highest rated person in the history of organized chess. This is higher than one of the actual challengers to the crown, Nigel short.
Regarding the rulings:
-
No one is going to pretend to be a woman, in order to convert the person’s identity with fide, they are required to have government issued paperwork saying they have transitioned. It’s not worth it.
-
it’s funny that male to female transgender people are not regarded as women by this ruling, hence cannot participate in women’s events, but female to male transgender people also forfeit their women’s titles as they are not seen as women either. (To be fair, they can convert them to open titles, and get them back if they detransition officially)
So according to FIDE, transitioning from a man to a woman doesn’t make you a woman, you are considered a man, but also, transitioning from a woman to a man makes you a man, so you are also not considered a woman.
Seems paradoxical. You’d think they’d pick one and stick to it.
Also: chess does have physical advantages, but they seem to be reletive and not competitive. Most high level players have some sports regimen as it helps increase cardiovascular efficiency, but size of competitor doesn’t seem to matter as seen by David Bronstein and Mikhail Tal. Ian Nepomniatchschi intentionally lost weight for the world championship, and his ratings grew as a result.
Remember that whales are not necessarily more clever than humans even though their brains are huge in comparison.
So according to FIDE, transitioning from a man to a woman doesn’t make you a woman, you are considered a man, but also, transitioning from a woman to a man makes you a man, so you are also not considered a woman.
This is only confusing if you assume the two categories are equal, one for each gender. The anyone category has more relaxed rules. They could make a men-only category that is just as strict as the women-only category, but what for?
-
This isn’t like running or something where men have a significant advantage physically over women just make it mixed gender and be done with it people can claim whatever gender they want and chess can avoid getting into a politically charged firestorm
Except because of some factors, that’s exactly the case. There have been around 2000 grandmasters ever. Only around 40 are women. Don’t ask me why, I’m not touching the topic with a 10 meter pole.
It’s the exact same reason as the one behind the gender disparity in STEM fields
No it isn’t. Genius distribution is different between men and women but STEM isn’t populated solely, or even significantly, by geniuses
Probably because there have been a lot more make chess players in general historically. It’s still a long way from an even split today and was probably even more imbalanced.
There have been many studies done on the factors that are relevant. There are near irrefutable mounds of evidence.
However, the biggest brained take on this is,
I’m not touching the topic with a 10 meter pole.
There is already an open division there is just also a womens division to provide additional support and opportunities for women in chess.
Please use some punctuation, your comment was really hard to read.
Having said that, I agree
Sorry dude adhd man
emotionally insecure men, worried about females beating them at their own game. nice chess, very nice.
Your comment is completely illogical. Transgender females would not be allowed to play in the female division, only the open division (everyone is allowed there).
sure thing spock. miss the forest for the singular bent tree in front of you
Of all the sports where someone’s biological sex would matter, chess is not one of them.
There is an open division where everyone can compete.
You have never been suplexed by someone you beat
Today we learned that bigots think trans women have a biological advantage at being smarter and more logical than cis women.
Last month we learned that bigots think trans women are hotter than cis women.
Starting to think bigots don’t think clearly.
“Damn those trans women, they’re so hot, and smart, and funny, and athletic…”
If trans men (and by extension all men) are equally smart and logical as women, why even have separate men and women categories? Let women compete with men and we’ll soon find which gender is more smart and logical.
That results in fewer women participating
Being a minority in any social setting brings difficulties that others just don’t otherwise face.
Having a women’s category for chess is a way of creating a safe environment for everyone to thrive.
Minorities like trans people? A place where everyone can thrive?
It’s fucking chess. I understand men may have more typical interest, but there shouldn’t be divisions based on sex or gender. Maybe divisions for some neurodivergent people, but I’d bet on many of the great chess players being neurodivergent in some way.
Only counter argument I can give you is have a bit of empathy.
Imagine that you were a young girl and saw this game. Chess. And you wanted to learn how to play.
The first person you asked was your mother and she told you oh that’s a boys game. But you still wanted to learn.
So you decide to just read up on the rules. You don’t really know anyone that plays. So you just kinda play vs yourself and redo. Old GM matches you found in old magazines. None of them are like you btw. They all seem like old men that live on the opposite side of the world.
You really like the game tho. And eventually you realize oh. There are actual clubs/tourneys near here I can go and play with actual people!
You go. And there’s not a single girl there. Because of all the hurdles you had to jump. Most others that would have been interested just quit.
So you get there. You are obviously underprepared because you didn’t have the support system that made learning it easy. Because of that you absolutely get wrecked.
In addition to that you probably will have to hear some dumb jokes. That if you didn’t have such a rough patch to get there in the first place they might have been funny to you. But they aren’t. They just felt like you were being punched down.
Having exclusive tournaments and leagues is a very minor way of rectifying awful historical disparities. It’s not perfect and it’s not a solution by itself. But it’s absolutely needed.
Only counter argument I can give you is have a bit of empathy…
Trans people are people too. If women need protection, trans people need it even more. They’re an even smaller minority that are mistreated even more often. I could write the same made up sad story as you but about a trans person.
If exclusive tournaments are a way to fix historic disparities, women should be kicked out of the league before trans people. I don’t totally disagree with the sentiment, but we can’t have a league for literally every small group we think of. Maybe there should be the main league and the “historically disparaged” league or something, but trans people should not be being removed from this league.
Entirely agree with everything you said. I never implied otherwise.
My entire comment was replying to this:
but there shouldn’t be divisions based on sex or gender.
There absolutely should. Reasoning: in my previous comment above.
If you are going to chess tournaments, you are past the point of getting your ass kicked in chess club. I said it on another thread, but if people are being demeaning and unsportsmanlike, they can get kicked out just as you would any other game. They do it for MTG, YGO and Pokemon TCG tournaments. Bullshittery about trans people aside, this is more of a systemic issue than anything else.
If the gender ratio was something like 1:4 or less, you’d have an argument that everyone should just get along. But there’s like 16 times more men in chess than women and separate tournaments means the gals won’t have to learn chest thumping to deal with the asshole faction they can simply be catty which they already know how to do.
My apologies. I still don’t understand. Are you suggesting that women are too fragile to deal with men’s posturing, or what? It’s fucking chess. Unless someone is arguing there are blatant skill discrepancies between men an women, it still doesn’t makes sense why there are divided tournaments. Is the argument women are less strategically minded, or what?
What the fuck is this sexist shit? Women are inharently catty and men are inharently aggressive?
If there’s an issue with men being aggressive, there needs to be rules to prevent it. If the ratio is a problem, there needs to be tools created to address that. The solution isn’t “women are catty and sensitive, so they need to be seperate.”
Erm, no. Both are aggressive. Cattiness is aggression.
Ok, why did you say men do chest thumping and women are catty?
Because the sexes tend to display aggression, status competition etc. in different ways. Are there catty men and chest-thumping women sure but bimodal distribution. Just like e.g. height.
I’m not going to argue with it being correct because it doesn’t matter. If the issue is aggression then it’s aggression, so just say aggression. Catty is also an insulting term. The league should have sportsmanship requirements and it shouldn’t matter how your aggression is presented or what gender you are when you are aggressive.
