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.
Yeah. I was reminded of the sports “debate” as well. Chess is one of the sports where you wonder why they have a gender division in the first place. Are they afraid of loosing to trans people or women (cis and trans)?
The women’s division exists because when the world of chess begrudgingly started to accept women at all, the massive amount of sexism discouraged women from actually playing and competing. So the other division exists to allow them to be acknowledged as players and be able to participate with a (reduced) amount of sexism driving women away.
So same reason there are colleges for women and black folks, they were established because they were either excluded or driven out of existing institutions.
There is only a womens-only league. The other leagues are open to everyone.