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.
Edit: In this comment I try to rationalize FIDE’s decision, but in my other replies I come to the conclusion that it hurts transgender people much more than it helps women as a group.
The “open” tournament is where the best chess player among men, women, both, neither, and everything under the sun can compete. In my opinion, everything outside of that the “who’s the best X” is based on arbitrary conditions of what qualifies as X, and doesn’t reflect on whether people in group X are inherent any better or worse than anyone outside that limited group.
Women and members of LGBTQ+ should be encouraged to join the chess world as it’s not a physical sport and anyone can become the best, so these rules support that. There should be a trans-person league as well if there’s sufficient interest, but FIDE has every right to make rules to limit who enters the “woman” tournament, without needing to imply that men are inherently better or worse than women at chess.
I absolutely understand that this sounds like a TERF-y line of argument even though I strongly believe trans women ARE women and vice versa, there are TERFs among women who wouldn’t want to take up chess because the space is so dominated by male players by the numbers. The “case-by-case” view is arbitrary to me which I’d like to see a more transparent process, but I think at the end of the day FIDE can disqualify anyone out of any tournament for any reason and this at least provides an avenue for trans women to potentially participate. Rule 4.1 that trans men lose their titles of “best woman” is consistent with the idea that trans men are men, because post-transition they shouldn’t be considered women anymore, by my understanding.
Anyways, I don’t mean to barge in to blindly spout transphobic views. In the spirit of healthy discussion I welcome people to disagree with me and give me insight on how FIDE can balance being more inclusive while promoting all genders to participate in chess.
The FIDE’s ruling on trans men shows they “think trans men are men” (they probably don’t actually, but that’s what the ruling implies), yet they then ban trans women from women’s competitions, meaning they don’t think trans women are women, by implication. This ruling isn’t consistent, isn’t fair, nor does it actually accomplish anything besides driving out a minority group who already have a tough enough time just existing in the first place. It’s also not even fair to trans men to strip their titles, as they likely won those titles when they didn’t know they were a man.
The ruling here is in no way reasonable, IMO. It exists to hurt people and does nothing else. Trans women need women’s spaces just as much as cis women do and banning trans women from women’s spaces does not “protect the women” like some people cite for rulings like this, it just further alienates trans people. If someone gets bent out of shape because a trans person exists in the same space as them, they can go fuck themselves, that’s their problem, not a trans person’s problem.
I heavily disagree with you saying “and this at least provides an avenue for trans women to potentially participate” considering before this ruling, trans women could already play in both women’s tournaments and open tournaments and now are banned from women’s tournaments. It’s the opposite of being inclusive. If you’re a trans woman, would you want to go play chess if you’re specifically told that you can’t play in women’s only spaces? No, you probably wouldn’t even start. This new ruling specifically exists to discourage trans women from competing by othering them and saying they aren’t woman enough to go play with the other women.
The best way for the FIDE to be inclusive is to continue just having open and women’s spaces as usual and not fuck with trans people’s ability to exist in spaces consistent with their gender. There were no problems being caused before, this ruling isn’t fixing anything, it’s just hurting people.
Which is ironic, because isn’t this kind of the same reasoning for creating women’s tournaments in the first place? To provide a safe space for women away from the “boy’s club” mentality that turned women off from pursuing chess?
I absolutely get your point but I have to still think about it a little. Say we removed the arbitrariness of the judgement panel process, allowing trans women to compete unconditionally in the women’s competition. Would the rule to strip trans men’s titles be considered fair and equal treatment in that case?
Now absolutely this is a reductive approach which doesn’t even take NB etc. into account for inclusivity.
On second thought, I’ve come to the conclusion that TERFs can be TERFs, and if they don’t want to play chess because a trans person could be among them, screw them, they can go elsewhere. So you’re right, FIDE needn’t concern themselves with what TERFs think what a “real woman” should be.
Thank you for your response and letting me walk through this.
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Yes, this does sound very TERF-y. I have gotten three reports on this already in just ten minutes. FIDE’s ruling others us for no damn reason. Their argument boils down to “AMAB people tend to have more practice at chess”, which is a ridiculous reason to exclude us for.
I’ve thought about it for a bit, see my other reply to @EsteeBestee.
I’ve ultimately come to the conclusion that really these rules are to protect the comfort of TERFs, and to be the most inclusive, FIDE shouldn’t concern themselves on what TERFs think a “real woman” should be like.
I’ve made an honest attempt to find a rationale that supports inclusivity in FIDE’s decision but after some consideration I realize it weighs much more against transgender rights than it supports women’s rights.
I appreciate that you were able to adjust your stance given further evidence and admit that you were initially misguided. Not everyone can do that. Good on you! :)
And like… I kind of get where you were coming from, since certain media does its best to say that trans women are “invading” women’s spaces or that trans women are inherently “unfair” when compared to cis women, so even if you don’t buy into that stuff specifically, it can still be somewhat pervasive, especially since it isn’t always hate-media spreading that. There’s always a sort of background noise about how trans people are bad in some way, so it can be hard to have fully resolved thoughts on the subject.
The only issues I’ve personally seen relating to trans women in women’s spaces is if a terf loses their shit, and usually in that case, the other cis women lose their shit at the terf. At least in my own life, the overwhelming majority of cis women seem to have no problem with trans women existing in women’s spaces (where I am, at least, which is an admittedly progressive area) and I’ve never really seen a trans woman causing issues, personally, even in sport (I know there were some high level cases in the last few years, but that’s like less than 1% of cases, most trans women in sport are just… women… playing sports). I guess that’s why I’m so headstrong and forward on the topic, since media says all this and that about trans people and hardly none of it has been true in my own life. I know others’ personal experiences will be different than mine, but I’m just really sick of seeing hate directed at minorities who just want to exist (you were not directing hate, I mean the FIDE ruling, you were being pretty darn reasonable, even if you initially disagreed with me).