International Chess Federation has some "interesting" ideas about male and female intelligence.

The International Chess Federation – also known as FIDE – says players who have transitioned from male to female have “no right to participate” in women’s events until the federation conducts “further analysis” and renders a final decision.

In a meeting earlier this month, FIDE’s council approved the updated policy which will come into effect on August 21.

The policy says that once a player informs FIDE they are changing their gender from male to female, they will be banned from competing in official women’s events.

Players then have to provide what FIDE describes as “sufficient proof or a gender change that complies with their national laws and regulations.”

At that point, according to the updated policy, FIDE will carry out analysis and make a decision on the player’s participation “at the earliest possible time, but not longer than within 2 (two) years period.”

However, the updated policy says: “There are no restrictions to play in the open section for a person who has changed [their] gender.”

The vast majority of chess tournaments are considered open categories with a select few – including the Women’s World Chess Championship – dedicated to just women.

The new regulations also state that if a player holds a women’s title, but changes their gender to male, their women’s title will be “abolished.”

However, if the gender change is from male to female, all previous titles will remain “eligible.”

It is unclear how the new policy will impact transgender women currently playing in FIDE tournaments, given the new rules focus on people who transition in the future.

The changes were outlined in FIDE’s handbook and, in a statement to CNN, the governing body said the policy was created in order to better define the processes involved when a player changes gender.

“The absence of such regulations caused ambiguity and therefore an established order was needed to provide the right of the transgender players being properly represented on the official register of FIDE,” the statement said.

In its handbook, FIDE also added that while it won’t discuss a player’s gender change publicly, it holds the right to “inform the organizers and other relevant parties on the gender change.”

“FIDE recognizes that this is an evolving issue for chess and that besides technical regulations on transgender regulations further policy may need to be evolved in the future in line with research evidence,” the governing body wrote in its handbook

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/17/sport/fide-bans-transgender-women-chess-spt-intl/index.html

The head of FIDE:

Everyone knows that checkers tends to be where women dominate, not chess

But we were assured by "I swear to all the gods I'm not a bigot " forge that it was all about muscle mass and bone density.
We were assured really, really, hard.
How could it possibly be insincere?

I'm unsure why there should even be gendered competition in chess.

But where is there any implication here that men are innately more intelligent?

Why are there separate gender categories for a game that’s supposed to rely on intellectual abilities? They routinely have tournaments where a minor will play an adult in some of the matches.

But only proper god fearing Western checkers, not that pagan abomination the Chinese play

The Borat screenshot was mostly just for fun, but if they're placing restrictions on transgender players, there's certainly an implication that one of the genders has some sort of innate advantage compared to the other.

Wiping out previous titles for FTM players but not MTF ones suggests they're going with the idea that if someone says they were a male all along, then they had some sort of unfair advantage against their female opponents.

If the categories were "male" and "female" then yes. But they're "open" and "female", for whatever reason.

FTM makes you ineligible for "female".
MTF doesn't make you ineligible for "open".

Your argument ought to be with the existence of those categories in the first place.

To be honest I hadn't given it much thought until I saw the article, but the existence of those two categories does seem to imply unfortunate things about female intelligence.

I'd love to know the official reasoning behind the separate categories.

I am not saying this is the case with the chess people, but there are times when female specific opportunities are given to offset the sexism and give women extra opportunities. Since it is said this chess organization only has open and women's divisions then it might be the women's division was set up to offset sexism in the open division and encourage women to play? This might have been made to create a division that enabled women from sexist countries to compete because their countries would not allow them to otherwise.

It is clear that whatever the reason the existence of a female division under a open division seems to have sexist roots, and it would create a smaller group of players which would be a handicap, then to play on that level would only be done out of necessity and it would be a lesser competition made specifically for women.

I get the desire to play with women in a women only game, but given the open division exists then participation is allowed. This just seems to shit on the women's division as a sexist tool to begin with.

My money's on the fragile feelings of men to be involved.

I was guessing some sort of paternalistic pity, letting their girls have their own consolation category where they only have to compete with one another for fun and don't have to worry about being outmatched constantly by the "superior male intellect."

Like the Special Olympics, but their only disability is being female.

This.

Although lately my view is definitely leaning toward "I'm unsure why there should be gendered competition in any event".

Think of all the fun violations in footie (soccer)!

"And here comes Christine down the centre of the pitch with the ball and... OH! Philip just elbowed her in the tit to take possession. There's a yellow card on the play... BUT WAIT! Brigitte jams her cleats into Philip's cockandballs! Oh, the humanity!"

3:40 on a Thursday afternoon and 14thDoctor ready to go big.

...this might generate interest in 'Merkins, kinda like going to a hockey match to see fights break out.

RE: bold -- You might be onto something here. And as much as I mislike enforcing Western ideals on other cultures, shit like this and other barbaric cultural practices (female circumcision, for example) needs to be dealt with. Not that we're doing great lately

My guess is it's neither of these, but rather a reaction to professional chess having had a "boys' club" atmosphere that was making female players go "eh, fuck it."

To have an everyone group and a women only group sounds like something the international chess community might have done to let middle eastern women play because otherwise they wouldn't be allowed to be around men. If that is the thing then it defeats the purpose if you put a trans woman in there and then those back asswards countries stop their women from being allowed to participate. Participation in that case might be important to chip away at the sexism in those countries.

The best I can figure out from some looking is that a women's only title encourages women to play the game by giving them their own category. They also have handicapped and junior categories. Why you would need a handicapped category unless it is for people only with mental disabilities is also weird. Women are not scored with a handicap in scoring, and they say the scoring is based on the open scoring.

There does seem to be some complaints already as to why there is a women's only division, and the only thing that seems to be said is it is there to encourage women to play because some women only want to play with women?

This looks like something that needs to be clarified. This also looks like something that if you break it the trans community is going to own it, and it is going to be used by TERFs and the bigots to say trans women are ruining women only spaces. Really, this whole thing seems to be reverse sexism for a confusing purpose.

In this case I would say the glbt people need to chose their battles as no one is being stopped from the real championship, and the women's only championship seems to be viewed by some, including women, as lesser titles because of the exclusion of men and others. It sounds like a problem that can be worried about when other bigger problems are fixed.

However, I am quite sure that the allied SJWs and a couple trans women are going to make a huge issue out of this because playing chess is a women's division is an important thing in a trans person's life when we are getting our healthcare and existence challenged. Go after Ron and the repugs so trans kids can exist in school and play games in school with their peers as who they are. For now if there are any great trans chess players they can play with everyone else since the only place they seem to be banned is the women's division.

I'm beginning to think instead of separating these things by men and women, we should be separating these things by non-bigots and bigots.

But I'm sure @Demiurge will be along soon to explain that the brain is just another muscle, and therefore transwomen have an advantage over ciswomen.

The brain of course isn't a muscle, but some people's work better than others. As we can see by @Fisherman's Worf stupid post.

I've stated it several times, women are just as intelligent as men are, men have no advantage in social situations, and it's mandatory that men and women have equal rights. Which is why I support women in their own sports leagues. You know, so they can exist.

Because women do have significant disadvantages against men in sport, because sexual dimorphism is real, no matter how that non-functioning brain of yours 'feels' about it. But I know, I won't lie about it to make assuage your dogma.

Take football, or as we yanks call it soccer. Far from the most physical sport. You'd think skill would be a primary advantage here, and therefore it would be one of the ones that women would fare better at.

Yet the last time the US Women's National Football Team played a friendly against males, they lost 5-2. They were ranked #1 in the world at the time. That was 2017.

Or the Australian Women's National Soccer team. They were ranked #5 in the world. The last time they played males, in 2016, they lost 7-0.

Notice I didn't say 'Men'. They weren't men. Both those highly ranked women's teams lost to boys teams 15 and under.
https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/fo...se-70-to-team-of-15yearold-boys-a3257266.html
https://www.cbssports.com/soccer/ne...-the-u-s-womens-national-team-in-a-scrimmage/

On the other hand chess? There's no actual foundation for sexual segregation in chess that isn't rooted in parochial values from the 50s. Of course women are just as intelligent as men, with the same level of drive and focus. Hell, women perform better now in academics. In many ways the future is brighter for women then men, and that's fine.

But Shaq is always going to be able to destroy Lisa Leslie in the low post, and women in the US at least would much rather watch the Kardashians then support the WNBA. I don't get it myself, but then, I'm a man.

FWIW US Chess has a more inclusive policy than FIDE, which is run by the former Russian Deputy Prime Minister under Putin.

"...and the wage gap isn't. Now go make me a sandwich, bitches".

You are talking to the voices in your head again.

The Wage gap continues to be real, but it has also shrank considerably in our live times. Both things can be true.

It hasn't moved much in the last two decades. Prior to that it dropped from nearly in half from 1982 to 2002, from 35 cents to 18 cents.

Among workers 25-34 it dropped from 18 cents to 8 cents.

But it's stabilized since then. It is clear women are impacted during their child rearing years, and as all women aren't involved in that the number is no doubt higher for those who do.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/03/01/gender-pay-gap-facts/

On the plus side far more women than men are achieving degrees and especially higher level degrees, and hopefully that will impact those numbers over the next generation.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-r...-men-in-the-u-s-college-educated-labor-force/

Eh, if FIDE really was such a "boy's club," I doubt they'd even bother carving out what amounts to a "safe space" for female players in the first place.

I Googled "why separate female chess" for the hell of it, the answers are mostly that there are so few women at most levels of the game that chess organizations created separate categories for them to encourage engagement and to give female chess players more opportunities to gain publicity and such.

"Hey, let's make separate events for women in our historically male nerd-dominated game to grow the game among the female half of humanity who can then choose whether they want to sit across from a Male Nerd for three hours at a time."

Most of WF except Tererun: "Sexism?!?"

I stand by my statement.