The world’s top chess federation has ruled that transgender women cannot compete in its official events for females until an assessment of gender change is made by its officials.

The world’s top chess federation has ruled that transgender women cannot compete in its official events for females until an assessment of gender change is made by its officials.

  • jet@hackertalks.comEnglish
    2244·
    1 year ago

    Silly question, why does chess, a mental activity, need gendered leagues?

    • jsveiga@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1329·
      1 year ago

      Chess at pro level is brutal. One can get mentally mauled if the adversary has a superior, trained for cruel psychological warfare, mind.

      Men just don’t stand a chance.

    • _wintermute@lemmy.worldEnglish
      10535·
      1 year ago

      Because the whole idea of gendered leagues in games that ultimately don’t matter at all is about segregation and control, not physiology.

      Bring on the down votes from the “but muh sports 'tegridy!” clowns.

      Edit: some of yall need a class on statistics lol

      • bhmnscmm@lemmy.worldEnglish
        313·
        1 year ago

        I don’t really follow. Do you mean only non/minimally physical competitions or all competitive sports/games/activities?

        For things like chess, fishing, and spelling bees gender segregation doesn’t make sense. But for things like martial arts or weight lifting I think it makes sense.

        It at least makes sense if the goal is competition between roughly similar groups of participants, and not just a single open class dominated by a particular physiology.

        • CarbonIceDragon@pawb.socialEnglish
          206·
          1 year ago

          Why not set up divisions, among sports where the physiological differences do matter, based on the actual weight, strength etc of the individual participants, whatever traits are relevant to that sport, rather than by gender? Even if the average woman and the average man have, say, a strength difference, there are still going to be some women who are evenly matched with some subset of men, after all. I feel like such a system, if done well, could make things more competitive than simply sorting by gender, because it enables sports where the people who are not on the stronger end of what their gender is capable of to still face equivalent opponents, and would remove the whole reason for debate regarding trans athletes, because they could get put into the same categories as anyone else without their identity being invalidated or having any relevance to their performance.

          • _wintermute@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1510·
            1 year ago

            There are tons of ways to makes sports more inclusive. The issue has never been “we’re all out of ideas,” but rather “we’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas.” Also “tRaDiTiOn”

          • bhmnscmm@lemmy.worldEnglish
            32·
            1 year ago

            Fair point. If your argument is that physiological factors matter, but gender is an insufficient variable to segregate on then I don’t disagree.

            I think it comes down to a matter of practicality. In most cases is gender a good enough heuristic? Maybe, or maybe not. I don’t really know, but it’s probably one of the simplest variables to consider. Perhaps it would be better if a more complete (but complex and harder to measure) set of factors were considered.

        • _wintermute@lemmy.worldEnglish
          44·
          1 year ago

          The only concession I can think of is things like crossfit games or Olympic weight lifting, where raw strength is the one and only point, or so central to the point that it’d be pointless to have men and women competing against one another. But things that require strategy or finesse like most sports, and definitely martial arts, women could absolutely be top contenders.

          As humans we have hunted mammoths together, gone to the moon together, created computers together, etc. I think we can handle throwing and catching the balls together too.

          TLDR there are many more aspects to most sports than raw physical strength, which is the only physiological “advantage” men have over women.

          • bhmnscmm@lemmy.worldEnglish
            131·
            1 year ago

            I think you’re right that there’s a spectrum, where one end is bound by raw physical strength and the other end is bound by technique. However, I’d draw the line for segregation closer to the strength end than you, I think. Granted, this is ultimately all just subjective.

            I think for many sports the physical advantage men have (on average) would outweigh any technique advantage a woman may have. Especially if we consider professional sports, where the skill (technique) of all participants is already exceptionally high.

            I’m not a martial arts expert, but I would argue that the existence of weight classes in most martial arts is evidence that raw strength is a factor that can’t be ignored. It’s a fact that for an athletic man and an athletic woman of equal weight, the man will be stronger.

            • barsoap@lemm.eeEnglish
              1·
              1 year ago

              Men will still be stronger at equal weight than women though the difference isn’t as drastic any more.

              About martial arts in particular though women have an advantage when it comes to actually being mentally capable of learning proper technique early on. You can tell your ordinary 16yold guy as often as you want that they should trust technique, punch with their legs, etc. it won’t get through their skull and they’ll over-tense to “feel the strain” the moment you turn your back on them. They just love their 3rd class levers. Probably even makes sense from an evolutionary POV as doing things inefficiently is strength training.

              It’s definitely possible for a woman to get better than a random street punk (though not with “feminist self defence” type of classes, those are generally bullshido). Against a properly trained man, though? Let’s say that the only thing my SO manages to be is a handful when I try to tickle her and it’s kinda hard to tickle when you don’t have a free hand.

            • _wintermute@lemmy.worldEnglish
              45·
              1 year ago

              It’s a fact that for an athletic man and an athletic woman of equal weight, the man will be stronger.

              Right. It’s not a fact that the man will be a more skilled or successful fighter (or insert any sports position here) than the woman based on strength alone, so why should we assume that it is?

              • bhmnscmm@lemmy.worldEnglish
                10·
                1 year ago

                I agree that technique is absolutely a critical component that women can be equal to men on.

                I’m just arguing that a woman would have to have an incredible technique advantage to overcome a man’s strength advantage (in most martial arts). Is it possible? Certainly. Is it a realistic situation, especially at the professional level? I’m not so sure.

                That’s why I brought up weight classes. Sure, a lighter weight class athlete has the potential to beat a heavier opponent with superior technique. But the skill gap necessary for that to happen isn’t realistic, therefore the playing field is leveled by strength (weight class).

          • silentdon@lemmy.worldEnglish
            61·
            1 year ago

            I definitely disagree with the martial arts point. If it’s simple point sparring where technique is most important like in karate or taekwondo then yes, men and women can compete. If it’s MMA or any kind of grappling then no, men will dominate at the higher levels.

            This will be true of any sport where strength, endurance or speed of the human body is a deciding factor. Which is, unfortunately, most sports.

            • _wintermute@lemmy.worldEnglish
              157·
              1 year ago

              What you have just said is that there is a cultural difference and I agree with that. Dont confuse that with a difference based on sex, or physiology, in other words.

              Obviously, men and women on a 1:1 basis have equal potential to excel at chess, based on their sex, right?

        • ShakeThatYam@lemmy.worldEnglish
          33·
          1 year ago

          Anyone know what the highest rated trans male and trans female chess players are? Would be interesting to know if this rule is even currently necessary.

      • maino82@lemmy.caEnglish
        34·
        1 year ago

        All of the pieces. On both sides of the board. Mentally it’s much more taxing keeping track of which pieces are yours. We guys have it really easy with the whole black/white pieces.

        • Quokka@quokk.auEnglish
          3·
          1 year ago

          Actually women are just better at seeing colour and for them what looks like the same pink to us is actually 17 different shades.

      • crowsby@lemmy.mlEnglish
        173·
        1 year ago

        And on average, they only start out with 80% of the pieces of the men’s set.

    • deegeese@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      405·
      1 year ago

      Have you met chess bros?

      I can see why women would want their own league.

    • Deestan@lemmy.worldEnglish
      287·
      1 year ago

      It doesn’t in principle, and it’s not really either.

      There is the main league, which is open for everyone, and an extra league for women only to offset the male dominance of the main league.

      Why they feel the need to exclude trans women from that I have no idea. Even many of the physical sports allow trans women under certain conditions and only to prevent any unfair advantage due to increased muscle growth during puberty.

    • superkret@feddit.deEnglish
      172·
      1 year ago

      Because otherwise women couldn’t currently compete beyond the local level. But I don’t have an explanation for the difference in playing levels beyond the fact that much fewer women seem to be interested in playing Chess competitively.

        • superkret@feddit.deEnglish
          212·
          1 year ago

          No. First of all Chess has nothing to do with being smart in any sense I would use the word.
          Otherwise a Raspberry Pi would outsmart all of humanity.

          Secondly, it’s much more similar to why the Faroe Islands can’t compete in soccer with France.
          Nothing suggests they have less natural talent for soccer (and it’s quite popular there), but there’s just 1/1000 the number of players to draw from.

          • _wintermute@lemmy.worldEnglish
            112·
            1 year ago

            Whoa, watch out with that logical thinking around here. As has been demonstrated by votes in a comment chain of mine further up the thread, the number of women at the top of the chess scene is totally indicative of womens’ intrinsic ability to play chess. It has nothing to do with the amount of women who play chess vs the amount of men who play chess! /s

            But yeah, it’s simple shit. If men outnumber women 100:1 in the competitive chess scene then obviously we expect women to be extremely under represented at the top. But misogynists gonna misogyny.

        • DrRatso@lemmy.mlEnglish
          51·
          1 year ago

          There is an open bracket (where anyone can play) and a womens bracket, currently women do not perform well enough to play internationally in the open bracket. What they are stating are merely facts. And really were it not for the existence of the womens bracket it is possible that women would perform even worse.

    • who8mydamnoreos@lemmy.worldEnglish
      177·
      1 year ago

      So women can play chess without the added mental burdens that come along with being a women in a male dominated space.

    • ex_redditor@lemmy.worldEnglish
      43·
      1 year ago

      It’s not gendered. If there is a female super GM she will be invited to the most prestigious tournaments. But there isn’t any… and that’s a whole other debate

    • whataboutshutup@discuss.onlineEnglish
      47·
      1 year ago

      Women gated off their league because every their move is commented on as a female one. They can’t fail for it’s deepens the stereotype of women=stupid and they can’t win for it’s just man wasn’t paying attention or played easy for her. The lack of women chess clubs and championships, the stereotype of it being not a sport for women is why there aren’t many high ELO players in this isolated and weird situation.

      One of the last strongholds of a fragile male nerd supremacy, that’s all.