The international chess federation known as FIDE has published new rules that state that a person whose “gender was changed from a male to a female the player has no right to participate in official FIDE events for women until further FIDE’s decision is made”.

The new rules introduce the following changes:

  • Trans women cannot participate in the women’s category unless they are explicitly allowed in a case-by-case process that can take up to two years.
  • Trans men will be stripped of their titles achieved before their transition while trans women will retain their titles achieved before their transition.
  • In case a trans person is allowed to participate, their trans condition will be added to their files and communicated to events organizers.
  • @ApeNo1
    19•9 months ago

    Um … what does gender or gender identity have to do with advantages or disadvantages in chess. Of all competitions where this is absolutely meaningless, surely Chess has to be nearly top of that list.

    • @branchial@feddit.de
      9•9 months ago

      There is a huge gender gap and the men discriminate against women and prefer to play other men. Thus the women get worse/less diverse practice than men which leads to them being worse at chess on average than men.

      This leads to them not qualifying for tournaments, which means even less chances to practice because the best way to get better are tournaments. Thus the womens league so they can at least play their equal in a tournament setting. Also having a lower entry barrier for women hopefully motivates more women/girls to play chess.

        • @ApeNo1
          9•9 months ago

          To not lose against a woman. This is not a gender gap. This is an experience gap artificially created and targeted at women via discrimination. It would be the same if say the discrimination was targeted at people with red hair because we thought they would steal our soul during a game or something equally stupid like that. The world would be saying why is no one with red hair in the top 100.

          A true champion wants to test themselves against the best possible competition. A selfish coward just wants to win at all costs.