Chess is a feminist issue.

There IS mixed competition, open.
Your DD has two options, open for mixed or women category. What about this makes you think that your DD is missing out in any way?

Chess is where we should have mixed competitions.

Sexism in chess is absolutely rife.The exclusion of transwoman is not coming from a good place for women. Its coming from the wholehearted believe that men are without doubt superior to women in chess.

This was very clear at every point of the junior

Organisers make it clear the male participants are considered to be naturally better, male trophies often bigger, organisers more likely to give discretionary awards to the boys make regular sexist comments.

Will put a lot if girls off, certainly put DD off and she had the potential to be quite good.

Focusing on the trans stuff misses the far bigger problem

I suppose the concern would be that the gender reassignment exemption for sport in s.195 of the EA only applies to “gender-affected activity” which the EA appears to define as physical sports only.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/195

its a valid concern that this might be challenged.

Thanks for sharing this, I haven’t had the headspace to look up the justification for keeping a women’s and an open tournament for chess.

Most people know where they personally stand on the trans situ, so I won’t comment there. However, I think it’s codswallop to have a gender divide in what is an intellectual, not physical, sport.

If the the justification is to keep a women’s event, because women hardly ever win in mixed events, then you’re creating a handicapped environment for women to compete, which presents them as intellectually subordinate to the men’s event, and men in general.

I think, in an intellectual game, Women will rise through the ranks if challenged by appropriate competitors regardless of their gender. Happy to be challenged on that.

Really interesting thanks OP (and thanks for that nice clear Twitter thread). Well done FIDE for stepping in in advance of the problems. That's intelligent forward thinking from the chess community there.

Thank you ArabellaKarenScott - that article has helped to job my memory I believe originally chess was a war game strategy tool for planning offensives and defensives - obviously no women, just levels of power given to the male pieces. I do think the background of the rise in power of the Queen piece is a really strong story to tell girls starting to play chess .

Girls chess needs to be protected and developed and I'm very pleased FIDE are going to do so.

There is a very strong woman player at my son's club - around 2000 ELO - and when she plays she gets a big crowd watching from the younger players, both boys and girls. It's great to see her influence showing the younger girls that they can be as good as the strongest male players if they study and play seriously.

As with most spectrums you will get a large cluster around the averages and they are as likely to be female as they are male -and that goes for chess too - but at the extreme end of genius ( certainly in chess/maths/engineering) you will find it is predominantly male.

Y are your feelings more important than ours?

I think chess is one of those activities that males excel in when you look at the extreme ends of various spectrums of ability/tendency/skill. Chess relies on spatial and strategic skills that are associated with the left hemisphere of the brain - which is larger in males than in females. I don't think it is controversial to say that. I used to play in chess tournaments as a child, as did my daughter - and we were always one of the few girls in attendance.

I went to an all girls's secndary school and we had a chess club. The one stand out player was an unusual girl, in many respects. Not only did she have a glass eye ( which she would take out in chemistry lessons), but she was a cross channel swimmer too.

Exactly. Women are meant to stand on the silver podium and stay silent. No feelings. No upset. Smile whilst your fair competition is erased

Bollocks to that

Love the Y - so true

This appalling situation will lead to depression and suicide attempts," Iglesias said.

Imagine a woman publicly threatening suicides because she didn’t get her way about a minor sporting event. Even one who had justifiable reasons to be upset and angry - one of the swimmers who competed against Lia Thomas, say. You think she’d get a sympathetic reception from the public?

Why does anyone take these people and their temper tantrums seriously? Oh yeah, I know Y.

Great news

FFS, what kind of airhead genuinely believes that sexism only exists around disparities physical strength?

Sexism is also about growing up and living in a sexist culture: leading to disparities between men and women in: opportunity, role models, leisure time, how family and educational resources are allocated, cultural expectations, individual self-image, social support for time spent that particular pursuit , consequences for winning or losing- sexism touches everything where it’s there.

From the BBC article (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-66538328) "Yosha Iglesias, a trans woman professional chess player with the FIDE rank of chess master, said the policy would lead to "unnecessary harm" for trans players and women.
"This appalling situation will lead to depression and suicide attempts," Iglesias said. "

it always seems to come back to the threat of suicide if they don't get what they want.

As to what Angela Eagle says about sexism in chess when she was a junior player, I'm pretty sure that most people who organised chess in those days (1970s) just assumed that boys were naturally better at it than girls, and would on occasions openly say so. I only realised that was nonsense when I (male) had to play against Angela's sister in a tournament and was crushed in about 15 moves.

I thought it meant "if you transition to being counted as a male, you can't say you won x tournament, thereby implying that you won the mixed tournament (which would be much harder as it's a wider pool of players) when you actually won the much smaller women-only tournament".

I assumed this was designed to make sure transmen weren't gaining an advantage through transitioning by passing themselves off as a higher-ranking player than they actually are. Which is why they'd get their ranking back if they ever detransition, because then the description of their rank would again be accurate.

But I could be completely wrong.

What does this mean? (From the BBC article.)

In its policy decision, FIDE also said that trans men who had won women's titles before transitioning would see their titles abolished.

What are they saying? It sounds like they are banning both males and females from the women's competition, based upon their trans identification.

Or is it the BBC supporting the deliberately obfuscatory language of trans ideology?

I expect chess would fall under the same basis you can have all girls or all boys schools- it’s not because the boys have a physical advantage, it’s to support and encourage the sex the school is for.
the girls in my 8yos school chess club play each other just about exclusively. I’d happily support there being a structure enabling them to play with girls at older ages and competitive levels. (Im just happy there is a bunch of 8yos in the school chess club at all!)

Let’s not forget that it’s only 6 months ago that a man tried to cheat his way to taking money set aside for women in a women’s only competition:

https://www.bbc.com/sport/africa/65280560.amp

@MrSand

If a person (P) reasonably thinks that [...] participation in an activity by persons who share a protected characteristic is disproportionately low [then] this Act does not prohibit P from taking any action which is a proportionate means of achieving the aim of [...] enabling or encouraging persons who share the protected characteristic to participate in that activity.

I think that means that a women-only chess tournament would be legal

Yes.
As I said:
FIDE are trying to grow women and girls' participation and see the ring-fenced competitions as a good way to do it, for reasons explained in the tweet thread above.. It is lawful under the EA2010 for events to be organised for groups who share a protected characteristic - sex, in this case.

But thanks for quoting the relevant provisions of the EA2010.

It is lawful under the EA2010 for events to be organised for groups who share a protected characteristic - sex, in this case.

I'm still no expert on the law, but I don't think that's true in general - it would likely be discrimination on the basis of a protected characteristic - although there are exceptions, including for physical sport, for women-only shortlists, and for cases where positive action is justified. Section 150 of the EA2010:

If a person (P) reasonably thinks that [...] participation in an activity by persons who share a protected characteristic is disproportionately low [then] this Act does not prohibit P from taking any action which is a proportionate means of achieving the aim of [...] enabling or encouraging persons who share the protected characteristic to participate in that activity.

I think that means that a women-only chess tournament would be legal, but a men-only one would not be.

Another chess player here.

IMO Angela Eagle was part of a generation of reasonably strong chess playing girls in the UK in the 80s, among whom a popular viewpoint was "we would be much better at chess if the horrid men didn't stop us by segregating us". While there is likely some truth in this viewpoint, those women players (both British and from other countries) who have become far stronger, have almost all taken a much more pragmatic attitude to the value of both women's-only and open events. (It is also worth noting that the level of angst seen about the rationale for women's only chess events in the UK, rarely seems to be replicated in those countries which have produced much stronger women players - also food for thought).

@UnwieldyRhombus
I have only limited experience of online poker, from being forced (slight exaggeration) to watch it with a friend and try to stay awake. But yeah, it's the same sort of attitude.

Here's what I've found from the EHRC.

https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/what-equality-law-means-for-your-association-club-or-society.docx

Sports clubs which are associations in equality law can organise separate sporting activities for men and women if they choose to where:
physical strength, stamina or physique are major factors in determining success or failure, and
one sex is generally at a disadvantage in comparison with the other.

This section with explicitly mentions chess clubs, but obviously chess wouldn't fall into the category above.

An earlier poster asked about women-only shortlists. I believe there is legislation to explicitly permit there, because they would otherwise be unlawful.