International Chess Org: Trans Women Have "No Right To Participate" In Women's Chess
www.erininthemorning.com
International Chess Federation, FIDE, has released new guidelines targeting transgender players. The guidelines would strip trans men's titles, and potentially bar trans women from playing.

With these new rules, FIDE has managed to

  1. Imply the mental inferiority of women
  2. Validate the existence of transgender men
  3. Destroy the integrity of awards record-keeping
  4. Call transgender women men

Very nice, FIDE, incredible mental gymnastics performance! 👏 Add them to the ever lengthening sports federation shitlist.

  • @[email protected]English
    5•1 year ago

    I think I read in a study somewhere that after transition, a trans female retains a certain amount of muscle mass and strength for a minimum of 2 years after transitioning. I’ll try to find the study and link it when I’m on the computer.

    That said, there is absolutely nuance to be had here, and the chess organization is being both transphobic and sexist at this point 😮‍💨

    • darq
      5•1 year ago

      I think I read in a study somewhere that after transition, a trans female retains a certain amount of muscle mass and strength for a minimum of 2 years after transitioning. I’ll try to find the study and link it when I’m on the computer.

      That’s why I said that the evidence is highly mixed. I’ve seen multiple studies that conclude that there is no reason to believe trans women retain advantage, but I also don’t doubt that you have seen the results you say you have either.

      Then it gets even more complicated with, what kind of strength are we talking about? And for what sport? There are even arguments made that increased bone size and density, paired with female-range muscle strength that trans women at least approach if not reach after a few years of transition, may represent a net disadvantage for transgender women.

      I just wanted to call out the one of the incorrect assumptions that even well-meaning folks make when talking about transgender people. Because they’re really quite common unfortunately.

      That said, there is absolutely nuance to be had here, and the chess organization is being both transphobic and sexist at this point 😮‍💨

      100%.

      • @[email protected]English
        3•1 year ago

        I’d like to interject that it’s not necessarily the evidence that mixed, but its interpretation. The same data can be taken two different ways.

        I just finished reading a link (wish I kept the url) that argued trans woman runners still outperform cis women by 12% after 2 years of hormones, pointing out the competitive requirements are only 1 year of hormones. Only in the subtleties do you find that their metrics for performance did not just involve running speed (but included push-ups), and that the underlying research admitted in conclusions that they were likely over-rating the trans women’s competitiveness…

        One of the things that I read somewhere that REALLY stuck with me is this. There will always be an "evidence-based "argument to attack trans atheletes so long as there is at least one trans athelete that is outperforming cis atheletes. If trans women are equivalent to cis women, then the real answer is that it should be even (weighted obviously) odds that the best in the world would be trans or cis… but what we seek to validate “fairness” is that no trans athelete ever actually rises to the top. Because if they do, it must have been their gender advantage.

        • darq
          3•1 year ago

          I’d like to interject that it’s not necessarily the evidence that mixed, but its interpretation. The same data can be taken two different ways.

          I mean yes and no, some studies don’t find evidence of competitive advantage. Some do. So, yes I agree that interpretations are mixed, but also evidence, between studies. And then interpretations of the entire body of evidence are mixed, but I personally don’t think that those interpretations are of much relevance, this is a discussion that has to happen at a more granular level of each sport.

          I just finished reading a link (wish I kept the url) that argued trans woman runners still outperform cis women by 12% after 2 years of hormones, pointing out the competitive requirements are only 1 year of hormones. Only in the subtleties do you find that their metrics for performance did not just involve running speed (but included push-ups), and that the underlying research admitted in conclusions that they were likely over-rating the trans women’s competitiveness…

          I actually think I’ve seen that one, yeah. One of the reasons I mention “what kind of strength”, and how that’s going to differ for each sport. But yeah, in that case, an exclusion period of two years, is not unreasonable at highly competitive levels.

          One of the things that I read somewhere that REALLY stuck with me is this. There will always be an "evidence-based "argument to attack trans atheletes so long as there is at least one trans athelete that is outperforming cis atheletes. If trans women are equivalent to cis women, then the real answer is that it should be even (weighted obviously) odds that the best in the world would be trans or cis… but what we seek to validate “fairness” is that no trans athelete ever actually rises to the top. Because if they do, it must have been their gender advantage.

          Yeah, I agree 100% here. We should expect a roughly proportional number of transgender women to be successful.

          But literally any single example of a transgender women succeeding is enough to have people crying “but they’re a man!”. Because, for a lot of people, they really just wanted to call trans women men, the whole sports thing is mostly just pretense.

          • @[email protected]English
            3•1 year ago

            Exactly. I recently watched Lance Armstrong go off on a silly survival TV show about how trans folk should not be allowed in men/women’s sports and try to defend it with a truly pointless argument of “unless there’s overwhelming proof” bullshit.

            He almost got voted off the show for that rant alone. If it weren’t on Fox, he would have.

            • darq
              1•1 year ago

              The last person I want to hear from about fairness in sports is Lance Armstrong. Bloody hell, lol