This has mostly been reported as "trans women banned from women's chess" but it's much more sinister. (as if it weren't already.)
ALL trans people are targeted by this ruling. Trans men will be stripped of all chess titles won, which can only be returned to them by “changing the gender back to a woman” (from the ICF’s ruling). ALL transgender chess players will be marked as trans in their files.
If you play or know anyone who does take a stand on this. It's ugly.
This news has caused some people to ask why "women's chess" even exists -- women can compete in the open tournament. The women's competitions were a recognition of just how far behind chess is when it comes to cultivating and welcoming female players.
Not that shocking they are even more far behind when it comes to even knowing what that would mean. (eg not excluding trans women.)
But all this misses the bigger point. They don't want any trans people at all in their games.
@futurebird Well, the only reason for segregating different player groups, in this case by sex/gender, is to protect the weaker one. With chess being a purely intellectual thing, this means that FIDE is of the opinion that sex makes a significant difference, intellectually.
In my opinion, this is a real double whammy: You see at first look that it's anti-trans, but on closer inspection it's also one of the most extremely anti-women things I've seen in recent times... Infuriating to the max.
@zappes my understanding is that, in this case, it's less "women aren't as smart as men" and more "women aren't playing chess in our leagues, so let's make a space to encourage them to do so"
But the road to good intentions etc
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