World chess federation bars transgender women from competing in women's events

Re:World chess federation bars transgender women from compet... by Shawnj2 on Saturday August 19, 2023 @04:09AM (#37186639)

If chess didn’t have a women’s league nearly all top level chess would be men so a woman’s league is a way to encourage more women to play chess. It’s the same premise as an all female gaming server or gaming tournament

The categories aren’t male and female, the categories are women and “open”, so anyone who wants to can compete in the open category. I’m disappointed they don’t consider trans women women because they are but chess having a women’s league isn’t that weird

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Re:World chess federation bars transgender women from compet... by bring_it_up on Saturday August 19, 2023 @08:26AM (#37188057)

> I’m disappointed they don’t consider trans women women because they are

Not really though. There are only two requirements to being a "trans woman":

1. Be a man

2. Call yourself a woman

That's it. Excluding them from women-only spaces is the only sensible policy if the essential character of such spaces is to be maintained.

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Re:World chess federation bars transgender women from compet... by Shawnj2 on Saturday August 19, 2023 @08:55AM (#37188292)

I’m not going to even really try to argue about this but that’s not really true, you could say trans people at stage X of a transition can play in the women’s bracket

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Re:World chess federation bars transgender women from compet... by bring_it_up on Saturday August 19, 2023 @08:58AM (#37188324)

What would be the significant differences at "stage X of transition"?

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Re:World chess federation bars transgender women from compet... by Shawnj2 on Saturday August 19, 2023 @09:00AM (#37188333)

If your goal is to filter out people pretending to be trans to play in the women’s bracket that would suffice

Also at some point trans people look nearly identical to straight people so no one would even know the difference without scrutinizing records

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Re:World chess federation bars transgender women from compet... by bring_it_up on Saturday August 19, 2023 @09:08AM (#37188387)

The goal is to have women-only spaces, in this case a competitive space. It's essential to filter out men for this purpose, including those who pretend to be women.

Making an exception for the latter if they make some attempt to perform femininity, even if it's a somewhat convincing act, really just undermines the entire point.

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