Transwomen are banned from women's chess!

[Sugarfree23]

I actually can't believe that Chess is separated into Women's & Open. The international chess federation have decided transwomen can't compete as women until the end of an enquiry that is expected to take 2 years!
BBC News link.

I’m not saying men are better than women because of innate brain differences, by the way. I’m just saying, we don’t know enough to rule it out and it doesn’t matter anyway. Women should be able to play competitive chess and win against other women.

They aren't really separated. There is a Women's category and an Open Category for the reasons already stated on this thread and elsewhere. It's about opportunity and encouragement. Chess is currently dominated by men and boys.

My DS has played chess for many years, from a junior of 7, right up to national and international level. In all that time, he's played very few women or girls. Take a look at how few women played in the British Championship this year.
There are few women in the higher categories and their highest rating is much lower than the highest rated men's. Until that changes, there should be a separate women's category that excludes those with male privilege, however they choose to identify.

Katy Montgomery, Ian Dunt etc. are simply demonstrating how little they know about chess. Yet again, this is about validation for a tiny group - and winning a title by any means.

This seems a bit like Snooker. Men are generally better because of practice and opportunity simply. If the women were nurtured as much as the men they'd probably catch up.....and darts! I guess men are far more likely to be funded and sponsored to train? Just speculating.

There isn't really sponsorship in Chess and the prizes are relatively low: £5000 for the British Open (£1000 for the Women's), I think.
There are far more male players and male coaches, traditionally male opportunities at schools.

It tends to be a middle class game in the Junior ranks. A lot of private schools have chess coaching on the curriculum and field strong chess teams, many of them are boys' schools at Secondary level.
That's beginning to change now that more of these schools are going co-educational and more girls' schools are starting chess clubs.

No I disagree with this and I'm mildly pissed off (but not very surprised) that some posters are falling over themselves to now suddenly argue this is right and good, because obviously women have some sort of "lady brain" that can't do chess as well as men.
Piss off.
Women should be able to play chess alongside men.
There is no lady brain.
You can't have it both ways and say there's no lady brain until it suits your narrative to keep trans women out. There either is or isn't a lady brain (and my understanding as a biology teacher is that there isn't, and therefore that it is impossible for trans people to be "born in the wrong body").
Also chess is not a sport it's a bloody board game.

Chess doesn't meet the definition of a sport in the UK, but it does in some other countries.

The reason there is separation of the sexes is to promote female participation in a male-dominated pursuit. There is no men's category - it's Open and Women's. Some women choose to compete in the open category, including Judit Polgar, the strongest-ever female chess player.

I know a bit about chess organisation though I'm not a player. It takes a lot of time and practice to become a skilled player and you have to enter events where there are norms in order to build the rating needed to become a grandmaster or a women's grandmaster. There isn't much money in chess and there is core of strong players who organisers will give free entrance to and pay the expenses of in order to give their tournaments a strong enough field to attract other players to participate.

Initiatives to increase participation of under represented groups in an activity, in this case women in chess, is allowed under equalities law, surely. Take the British Chess Campionships. Everyone plays in one group but there's a separate women's prize for the highest performing female. Why shouldn't they have an incentive to encourage more women to play?

@WomenShouldStillWinWomensSports
On the other thread there is an inspiring but also shocking article by a woman called Susan Polgar - a champion chess player who organises female-only coaching and competitions. It makes very clear why these events would serve a valuable purpose in bringing more women and girls into chess and raising the competitive standard.

Absolutely this.
The only reason to segregate is if you believe women are at a natural disadvantage - in this case if you believe "female brains" are less capable of logic and problem solving.
Which I certainly don't (I think quite a few male chess Grand Masters do though - Bobby Fischer, maybe?)

When you look at the figures as to how many male grandmasters there are, and how many female, then your understand why its SEX segregated. There are less than 40 females to 1600+ males.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17201785/#:~:text=Only%201%25%20of%20the%20world%27s,ratings%20objectively%20reflect%20competitive%20results.
https://theconversation.com/whats-behind-the-gender-imbalance-in-top-level-chess-150637

Perhaps another reason to segregate is to ensure the few women who do enter chess competitions get a fair chance of winning?

Do you feel the same about STEM initiatives and awards for women and girls?

It's been clearly recognised that women and girl have not been given the same opportunities and encouragement in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths. Also that we have experienced discrimination and bias against us in those areas. As such there are now targets and initiatives to try to encourage equality. No one is saying that women and girls are less capable in STEM, just that we haven't been given the same opportunities as men and boys.

The same reasoning can be applied to chess where the entrance and winner data proves a bias towards men and boys.

The Twitter thread linked in the other Mumsnet thread explained it so sensibly. The women's category in chess exists because a gulf exists between men and women's performance in chess. It isn't clear why that is the case but whilst that gulf exists there should be a women's category.

Those of you who are up in arms at there being separate women's competitions are missing the point: there is positive discrimination in chess to encourage more women to play and compete. Should a female competitor wish to enter the open competition at a tournament instead of the women's they absolutely can providing they meet the rating requirements for the particular competition.

This.

I'd say there is possibly a more prosaic reason there are more men playing chess regularly than woman.

I can understand why you wouldn't want 250lb men playing rugby against women but surely this is suggesting we're intellectually at a disadvantage against men?

No. It’s really not.

Read the thread. Others have explained it far better than I can be bothered to try with someone who can’t be bothered to read the full thread!!!

How ridiculous. I can understand it for strength based sports, but chess?

Its women and OPEN.

so the women can play in either presumably not both.
So those women that want to can play alongside men.

You haven't read the thread properly, or you'd know that's not what we're saying.

Women do play in the Open competition alongside the men. There is a prize for the highest placed overall, which is invariably won by a man, and an additional prize for the highest placed woman.