Transgender Athletes

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larkim Aug 2023 3:29pm, 17 Aug 2023 21,744 posts	0 larkim My understanding is that the protected category of female chess players is there to recognise the overwhelming male dominance of the game for a variety of social / historic reasons and to facilitate a relatively broad prize and title set of opportunities for women. It is an interesting example though of an area where the other super strong arguments for protection of female categorisation (retained post puberty advantage, protection of female safe spaces, physical risk etc) are less easy to apply and the fierce advocacy on both sides may find their arguments become much more simplistically "in principle" or based on holding a specific view for entirely "emotional" (vs rational) reasons.
LindsD Aug 2023 3:37pm, 17 Aug 2023 63,440 posts	0 LindsD Thanks. That's really helpful
SPR Aug 2023 4:39pm, 17 Aug 2023 42,245 posts	0 SPR What Larkim said re chess, there are titles like WGM that are lower than GM for example. Women can still be GMs but they have the specific women titles as well. chess.com
jda Aug 2023 4:41pm, 17 Aug 2023 15,320 posts	0 jda I don’t see what’s so odd with the article or underlying story. I was just myself wondering what the overall policies were since the international chess organisation FIDE is currently running the Open World Cup alongside the Women’s World Cup. There weren’t any women in the open competition and I’ve not heard of transgender players but I’m sure there must be some at various levels of ability. The vast majority of chess is mixed gender (in principle - it’s quite common to find teams are entirely male, as is my local club and in fact all but one of the teams in our local league). But as larkim says, there are some women’s competitions, usually at national or international level, and women-specific titles etc.
jda Aug 2023 4:42pm, 17 Aug 2023 15,321 posts	0 jda Sorry too much cross posting wasn’t meaning to pile on…
richmac Aug 2023 5:07pm, 17 Aug 2023 22,913 posts	0 richmac Not at all JDA, it's really interesting to understand why they've done what they've done and it's not just batshit crazy.
jda Aug 2023 8:40am, 18 Aug 2023 15,325 posts	0 jda A thoughtful article from one of the UK's top chess players in recent years (best ever Scottish player, I believe) who is now more of a philosopher by trade: jonathanrowson.substack.com I think it's useful to consider cases removed from the standard athletics etc as it forces us to think about the issues in a more general sense.
KatieB Aug 2023 9:14am, 18 Aug 2023 8,848 posts	0 KatieB Thanks jda. Very interesting food for thought.
larkim Aug 2023 10:18am, 18 Aug 2023 21,746 posts	0 larkim Thoughtful and interesting, thanks for the link. I particularly liked "The overarching view I have come to is this: men and women are different, but the nature, meaning and implications of those differences should not be decided by men" as something which clearly articulates some of the stuff I've been reading recently.
The_Saint Aug 2023 3:25pm, 18 Aug 2023 7,051 posts	0 The_Saint A few years ago I read a couple of books about the difference (and similarities) between the female and male brain so I may have some of the attributions mixed up - the authors were saying very similar things although with dramatically different approaches. One was written by Sir Simon Baron-Cohen - (yes his cousin) - Professor of knowing lots about the brain at Cambridge University https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/simon-baron-cohen/the-essential-difference/9780786740314/?lens=basic-books#:~:text=We%20all%20appreciate%20that%20there,women%20are%20inclined%20to%20empathize. Worth a read - interestingly at the end there are two tests you can take, I came out as having a very male brain in the test for that and got a perfect score in the empathy test which is the female brain test.