International Chess Org: Trans Women Have "No Right To Participate" In Women's Chess
www.erininthemorning.com
International Chess Federation, FIDE, has released new guidelines targeting transgender players. The guidelines would strip trans men's titles, and potentially bar trans women from playing.

With these new rules, FIDE has managed to

  1. Imply the mental inferiority of women
  2. Validate the existence of transgender men
  3. Destroy the integrity of awards record-keeping
  4. Call transgender women men

Very nice, FIDE, incredible mental gymnastics performance! 👏 Add them to the ever lengthening sports federation shitlist.

  • @BarrelAgedBoredom
    155•9 months ago

    So the argument about physical capabilities used to ban trans women from sports was bullshit and it was all actually transphobia?! Color me shocked

    • @KevonLooney
      39•9 months ago

      Well… no. There are maybe 50 women total who could play in the NFL, mostly as kickers. In basketball, women use a smaller ball because their hands are just smaller. Someone who’s FTM is probably not going to be able to compete.

      There are enduring advantages from living most of your life pumped with testosterone. But there’s so few top athletes who transition MTF in their prime, it’s not a big problem. Just look at Caitlyn Jenner. She could still beat most women (and men) at a track meet.

      • @BarrelAgedBoredom
        64•9 months ago

        Just gonna paste an old comment I made about trans athletes. TL;DR: athletic advantages/disadvantages diminish after ~2 years of HRT. There’s no good reason to exclude trans people from elite sports. Athletes already undergo testing to make sure their hormones levels are within pre-determined limits.

        British Journal of Sports Medicine states 2 years after receiving gender affirming hormones, athletic advantages disappeared with an exception to running, in which trans- women had 9% faster lap times. Trans-men were on par with their biological male counterparts after just 1 year of hormone therapy.

        Medscape has an interview with Joanna Harper, and advisor to the I0C on gender and sports about this very topic. In the interview she mentions a study out of Brazil that indicates a further decrease in strength in trans-women (MtF) athletes after 36 months, further diminishing any potential physiological advantage in these athletes.

        There’s also something to be said about who these arguments are targeting. There are very few elite trans athletes and they already have to conform to strict guidelines on blood hormone levels and other doping tactics, just like everyone else at that level. The arguments are largely against high schoolers (children) who just want to participate in something. No one is taking puberty blockers and gender affirming hormones just to take a trophy home in high school. It’s a ridiculous argument through and through. A thinly veiled attempt to further marginalize and discriminate against a vulnerable population

        • BloopsOP
          44•9 months ago

          The issue of transgender athletes was basically resolved several years ago when the IOC decided on two years of feminizing hormones before transgender women could compete in the female category. But due to the re-emergence of the anti-queer culture war, sports federations are re-litigating the issue and throwing science out the door.

          • blanketswithsmallpox
            -7•9 months ago

            Science completely disagrees in so many studies. Let alone the personal opinions of trans athletes in the world themselves lol.

            Like you two, I’ve provided sauce above. Most of it far more recent than several years ago as if pointing to a single study refutes any other lol.

            Edit: It sounds like you’re referencing old studies. And the Olympic Committee isn’t exactly known for being on top of science or neutral lol. It’s nearly decade old science in a field that still needs a lot of data.

            In 2015, IOC invited Harper to attend its Consensus Meeting on Sex Reassignment and Hyperandrogenism held in Lausanne, Switzerland. After 3 days, the panel of scientists and physicians converged on revised rules for transgender competitors, including at least 1 year of hormone replacement therapy for female competitors, rather than the 2 years previously required. That change was a nod to Harper’s personal transition experience and to research published in 2004 in the European Journal of Endocrinology showing that the testosterone levels—and therefore performance—of 19 transgender women stabilized after 12 months of hormone therapy.

            https://www.science.org/content/article/scientist-racing-discover-how-gender-transitions-alter-athletic-performance-including

            More news showing it’s unfair. Just go see my original.

            https://www.npr.org/2023/03/24/1165795462/transgender-track-and-field-athletes-cant-compete-in-womens-international-events

              • blanketswithsmallpox
                4•9 months ago

                iridaniotter

                Begone, transphobe.

                Sounds more like you’re a closed minded bigot who has already made up their mind despite being shown evidence to the contrary.

                It’s not a very becoming look for someone who presumably wants progress for trans folk. You can’t just stuff your head in the sand the moment science begins to sway a different direction. It’s not how science or reality works. It’s not Adam Savage’s most well known catchphrase.

                These are important discussions and you’re literally harming trans people by acting this petulant and childish. Quit with the persecution act and show your sources. This ain’t Truth Social lmfao.

                  • darq
                    4•9 months ago

                    So even if we knew, with near certainty, that a child would be helped by gender-affirming care, you maintain “no exceptions”. Because forcing 99 trans people through an undesired puberty is better for you than 1 cisgender person having a delayed puberty. Because 99 miserable trans people is worth saving 1 cis person from even mild discomfort.

                    You aren’t a doctor, and more importantly, you aren’t their doctor. Keep your nose out of other people’s healthcare, it is none of your business.

                  • @Trainguyrom@reddthat.comEnglish
                    0•9 months ago

                    No “gender” stuff until they are 18 years old, no exceptions.

                    Yeah this demonstrates a complete lack of understanding and probably an unwillingness to try to understand. As a cis-gender individuals you and I can’t know what it’s like to be trans, but we can listen to those who do know and try to understand to the best of our abilities. You clearly don’t wish to, but I have listened and I try to understand because I wish to be a decent human being.

                    My friends and family who are trans have said they knew from very young ages that they are not the gender they may have been biologically born as.

                    Also once you know you are trans one of the first steps is to take medications that prevent puberty from occuring which allows a much easier and cleaner transition later in life as well as allowing them to present as the gender they wish to present as. Preventing access to this kind of medical care until they are 18 is severely detrimental.

                    Gender affirming medical care is critical because the suicide rates of trans people who are not able to transition are incredibly high and rates of regret for those who are able to receive transition surgery is so shocking close to zero.

                    TL;DR you’re wrong and an asshole for choosing not to learn otherwise

                • @TheMage@lemmy.ml
                  -6•9 months ago

                  I know. As soon as you question the “agenda” at all you get attacked by the usual suspects. Whatever. It’s clear that when people get mad an insult you that you’ve struck a nerve. They can’t handle it.

                  • @OccamsTeapot@lemmy.world
                    2•9 months ago

                    “The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.” - Carl Sagan.

        • @KevonLooney
          16•9 months ago

          I’m sure muscle diminishes rapidly after MTF transition, but humans are just very good at losing muscle. Height and hand size are not things that go away after transition. Basketball is obviously one of the sports where MTF people have a massive advantage, although I don’t know of any studies on it. It depends massively on the sport.

          Of course in professional leagues everyone is genetically unique. Saying “no this particular genetically unique person is unfair” is a bit weird.

          • BloopsOP
            33•9 months ago

            When you start talking about height and hand size, I think you’re getting lost in the sauce. Basketball already favors abnormally tall people anyway, but no one is trying to ban Yao Ming from the sport for being 229 cm (7’6").

            • @CoderKatEnglish
              28•9 months ago

              Yeah. Pretty much all the transphobic arguments could apply to most top athletes.

              “Yao Ming is stealing sports from natural, normal height men!”

              “Michael Phelps has an unfair advantage because he has unnatural lungs and bone structure!”

              “It’s not fair to normal men that they have to compete against Mike Tyson. Would you want your son to have to fight against that?”

              The reality is that the top athletes will always be physical outliers. That doesn’t mean more average folks need to be excluded from sports nor that birth gender necessarily gives you an unfair advantage compared to the top athletes.

            • @BarrelAgedBoredom
              24•9 months ago

              Beat me to the punch. This has been a settled issue for years, the only reason to hammer on about how trans people shouldn’t be in sports is either prejudice or ignorance. And having a several comment exchange where sources are already cited kinda narrows that down

          • @barsoap
            12•9 months ago

            Have you seen Michael Phelp’s hands. The man is an absolute genetic freak with multiple advantages, both in external build and internally (e.g. lactose buildup), there’s no way anyone with average genetics can compete no matter how much they train.

            And middle of the road athletes competing in the men’s leagues don’t become top athletes in the woman’s league after transitioning, btw. They become middle of the road. Might there be some slight advantage? Dunno, not sure, might be, but it also doesn’t matter because noone the fuck is willing to incur gender dysphoria to win a fucking title. Athletes are nuts but not that nuts.

              • @barsoap
                6•9 months ago

                200-yard freestyle race at the Ivy League women’s swimming

                Is the type of race that can be totally dominated by up and coming Olympic athletes. Regional/institutional races tend to have quite low records until someone top-tier happens, by chance, to participate in them in the course of their career.

                women’s indoor 1,500 meter long distance running event for ages 50-54.

                My sides. A senior event. At that age the only one you’re competing against is yourself.

                The Canadian Powerlifting Union announced a gender self-identification policy earlier this year that allowed athletes to participate in women’s competitions on the basis of self-declared gender alone.

                Yeah that’s bullshit there’s a reason the rules set by all other organisations involve something along the lines of a minimum of two years on HRT. Noone at all anywhere is claming that the act of identifying as a woman, alone, reduces muscle mass.

                  • @barsoap
                    4•9 months ago

                    In the elite men’s crit at the Loughborough Cycling Festival last May, she finished 43rd out of 45. Her final men’s race was the Welsh National Championship in September. Bridges finished second to last.

                    Previously, she set national records in the junior male category.

                    Nice of you to provide your own counter-evidence. There we have it, a top athlete in the men’s category, slumping to “does she even qualify?” in the men’s ratings, but ranking top in the woman’s category – because she was and still is a stellar athlete.

              • darq
                4•9 months ago

                Except they haven’t. There are a small handful of examples, that people both greatly exaggerate, and repeat over and over again. Trans people have been allowed to compete for many years prior, and have not overrun women’s sports.

                Simple math is that even being a small minority, trans people will, occasionally, win things. Even if there are zero competitive advantages to being a transgender woman, some trans women are gonna excel. Finding a handful of examples of trans people being good at sports isn’t actually proof of advantage.

        • @ZombieTheZombieCat
          11•9 months ago

          athletic advantages/disadvantages diminish after ~2 years of HRT

          This is what I keep thinking whenever I hear about this “debate.” But I guess if the bigots admitted they know how hormones work, then they wouldn’t have an outlet for their transphobia.

          • darq
            4•9 months ago

            It’s incredible how a good number of transphobic people just either do not know, or cannot admit, what hormones do.

    • blanketswithsmallpox
      13•9 months ago

      Yeah, non-trans women don’t enjoy being forever 2nd because they weren’t born men in physically competitive sport lol.

      It doesn’t take years long studies to understand a woman who transitioned well into or after puberty is still built more physiologically man than women. We will still need data about those who transitioned early and before onset. When a man transitions into being a woman then wipes the floor with every one of her peers, there’s something wrong.

      You either need mixed gender sport. Male only, and female only. The regulations regarding each will have to be arbitrarily chosen until a good spot is found.

      Mental sports that take near zero physical strength should have zero separations between the genders though.

      It was great when women started wiping the floor with men at Shooting lol.

      It’s not so great when, well, Bill Burr says it funnier lol: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2ESahoCdQ28

      Edit: Since people want sauce wars…

      Trans athletes retaining advantages even after a year or HRT.

      https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/trans-women-retain-athletic-edge-after-year-hormone-therapy-study-n1252764 - Jan. 5, 2021

      Given that the percentage difference between medal placings at the elite level is normally less than 1%, there must be confidence that an elite transwoman athlete retains no residual advantage from former testosterone exposure, where the inherent advantage depending on sport could be 10–30%. Current scientific evidence can not provide such assurances and thus, under abiding rulings, the inclusion of transwomen in the elite female division needs to be reconsidered for fairness to female-born athletes.

      https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9331831/ - 2022 Aug; 19

      When a male athlete transitions to female, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, which governs college sports, requires a year of hormone-suppressing therapy to bring down testosterone levels. The N.C.A.A. put this in place to diminish the inherent biological advantage held by those born male.

      Ms. Thomas followed this regimen.

      But peer reviewed studies show that even after testosterone suppression, top trans women retain a substantial edge when racing against top biological women…

      Testosterone levels are crucial but do not invariably predict performance in every sport.

      https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/29/us/lia-thomas-women-sports.html

      Renee Richards interview…

      “I know if I’d had surgery at the age of 22, and then at 24 went on the tour, no genetic woman in the world would have been able to come close to me,” she said in an interview. “I’ve reconsidered my opinion.”

      https://slate.com/culture/2012/10/jewish-jocks-and-renee-richards-the-life-of-the-transsexual-tennis-legend.html

      The council said they ultimately decided to prioritize “fairness and the integrity” of the female competition over inclusion.

      The World Athletics Council plans to form a working group to consider the issue of transgender inclusion over the next year. The committee will speak with transgender athletes to seek their perspective, review research on the matter and submit recommendations to the council.

      https://www.npr.org/2023/03/24/1165795462/transgender-track-and-field-athletes-cant-compete-in-womens-international-events

      However, we do have evidence - we have 13 studies that show significant retained advantage. We have a number of other studies of males with lower testosterone levels with prostate cancer, we know what happens with training, and so I think collectively the picture is quite strong to suggest that advantages are retained.
      So I would be quite confident at this point that a policy that regulates women’s sport by excluding male advantage, which includes trans women, is the evidence-based one.

      https://www.bbc.com/sport/61346517 - 11 May 2022

      In this study, we confirmed that use of gender affirming hormones are associated with changes in athletic performance and demonstrated that the pretreatment differences between transgender and cis gender women persist beyond the 12 month time requirement currently being proposed for athletic competition by the World Athletics and the IOC.10 This study suggests that more than 12 months of testosterone suppression may be needed to ensure that transgender women do not have an unfair competitive advantage when participating in elite level athletic competition.

      https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577 - May 17, 2021

      • @BarrelAgedBoredom
        15•9 months ago

        Responded to a comment above yours with sources etc. There’s no good reason to exclude trans athletes from sports. Benefits diminish to a negligible point after ~2 years of hormone therapy. I do agree with you that the chess thing is ridiculous though

        • blanketswithsmallpox
          2•9 months ago

          Thanks for the update.

          I’ve also went and provided numerous and a variety of sources, direct studies, and reputable news sites disagreeing with the nearly decade old science the ALWAYS RIGHTEOUS OLYMPIC COMMITTEE based their decision on from an apparently single cherrypicked study in 2015?

          I’d agree it looks like a 2 year wait requirement is a much better factor than the current single year though. Until then though, it needs changed. Then we will need more refuting the current I’ve linked above which shows pretty handily across the board that MtF athletes retain advantages well after a year and longer.

      • Blakerboy777
        2•9 months ago

        @blanketswithsmallpox

        @iridaniotter @BarrelAgedBoredom

        Yeah, non-trans women don’t enjoy being forever 2nd because they weren’t born men in physically competitive sport

        Some sports just have totally dominant competitors. I don’t think all the men who lost to Michael Phelps enjoyed losing to him because they didn’t get to be born complete genetic freaks that look like they were engineered in a lab to win at swimming. In many women’s sports, the top (cis) competitors tend to have really beneficial genetics, including really high levels of testosterone compared to average. Losing to someone because their genetics help them be faster/stronger/taller is just how it goes in competitive sports. Losing to a trans woman is no different than losing to a cis woman who hit the genetic lottery.

        • blanketswithsmallpox
          1•9 months ago

          Thanks for the heads up. I’ve provided lots of sauce now too and will continue editing as I pull them up almost in order on Google lol.

      • idontpeoplegood
        0•9 months ago

        Yeah, non-trans women don’t enjoy being forever 2nd because they weren’t born men in physically competitive sport lol.

        The way you start your post is very telling. You’d have been better off leaving out the first two paragraphs.

        It doesn’t take years long studies to understand a woman who transitioned well into or after puberty is still built more physiologically man than women.

        Appeal to common sense. Also, why default to exclusion/discrimination rather than starting from a point of inclusion and make adjustments from there?

        When a man transitions into being a woman then wipes the floor with every one of her peers, there’s something wrong.

        That is not something that has been shown to happen to any significant degree. Seems like another appeal to common sense. Are trans women not allowed to win?

        I’m sure you’re just a concerned citizen who wants what’s best for all involved. 🙄

        • blanketswithsmallpox
          1•9 months ago

          OmniDeficient

          Common Sense Fallacy… concerned citizen…

          So are you going to talk about the numerous sauce or???

          Right, you can’t. Fallacy fallacy. I’m poking fun at the issue like numerous others have had. So the entire argument is wrong… despite…

          Appeal to common sense fallacy!.. Yet it’s where almost all scientific studies come from lol. Also, just because something is a fallacy doesn’t mean the logic isn’t true lol. Black or white fallacy!

          It’s only a fallacy if it isn’t true mate.

          This isn’t rhetorical roulette. The simple fact is that you can’t refute the studies, you can’t refute the sources, so you refuse to change your position. We literally hang a Progress Pride flag off our porch. Like the other person below, you’re doing way more harm than good to trans rights.

          Either get with the times and help, or stop trolling and ruining the perception of trans folk online by refusing reality. The current rules need to be changed. Top athletes have changed their position ex posto facto realizing how much of an advantage they had within those 2 years after transitioning for decades. Science is showing that people retain advantages after for even longer than 1-2 years. At the top levels of Sport, advantages as small as 1% is the different between even qualifying and medaling.

          It’s an issue. It’s going to take time to resolve. No, swinging the pendulum too far the other direction isn’t good, it ruins arguments. Yes, you’re human just like those trolls, it doesn’t mean you should be falling for the same stick your fingers in your ears obstinance,