World chess federation bars transgender women from competing in women's events

MicroWave@lemmy.world to World News@lemmy.world – 522 points –
World chess federation bars transgender women from competing in women's events
apnews.com

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.

266

You are viewing a single comment

Men can be nasty and intimidating towards women as history have shown a million times. Add in the fact you have a lot of "old fashioned" men in the sport that may not be up to date on how you should behave in the third millennium. If you want to grow the sport, you need to facilitate a safe and welcoming environment for everyone. Tournaments exclusive to girls is one way build towards that.

This is the first comment that made me understand why separate competitions are requires. Thank you.

Set a code of conduct and ban people who misbehave. Might lose some top players, but it'd be better for everyone else.

I mean, the real answer is that chess is full of toxic people who've made it to the top to run the organization. The fact that this behavior wasn't curtailed already shows that. Its just an accepted part of it. If the ones who would make the decision to ban those players don't already see an issue they're not going to start now to make the space better for women.

If you want to grow the sport, you need to facilitate a safe and welcoming environment for everyone.

Hm. In addition to a welcoming environment it might be fun to have a 'cutthroat' class with an opposite approach where intimidation, bullying, and over-the-top shit-talking is encouraged. They could have competitors come out in like pro-wrestling gear or something and have a stare-down at the beginning of the match.

Nerdy men playing a board game are intidimating? How do women even get anything in life done of they are this fragile? WTF? Do you also want separate women-only schools, and women-only companies?

Playing a board game isn't problematic, but being crass and abusive about it like this is.

What is abusive about saying that women are strong and should play with men without issues?

Morphing the actual event and using softer language to describe the behavior is certainly one way to abuse people by gaslighting them. He didn't say women are strong he accused the ones participating in this of being weak. Take your doublespeak elsewhere.