Trans teen chess champion - Share token needed please

[ZeldaFighter]

Has anyone got a share token for this article in the Times please? I find it very interesting that the Times appear critical and have shown a picture of the competitors. Articles that are supportive don't show the pictures

https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/transgender-german-chess-nora-heidemann-rqqjmw6tc

Bloody Nora.

https://www.thetimes.com/article/08f74c34-0c3b-4e8b-bc56-6f7edca93e4b?shareToken=7476544926d196d476b500edb82ecd8d

I. Am. So. Sick. Of. This. Shit.

Nora Heidemann’s victory to become German champion in the female category of the youth chess championship in Willingen this month was met with criticism from some players and from the head of the German commission for women’s chess, Nadja Jussupow.

“We must prevent abuse,” Jussupow said.“If someone really wants to live permanently as a woman and even undergo a sex change, then I don’t see any problems at all. But we should prevent men from changing their gender just to win a title or get attractive prize money advertised for women. Then the other women are simply being discriminated against.”

Of course Jussupow doesn't go far enough. It's irrelevant whether the man is "living permanently as a woman" (usual disclaimers, lipstick + handbag don't count as living as a woman). If there is a need for a women's category, for whatever reason, even just to encourage women to take part, then men should not be in it. It's for women.

But apart from the usual suspects that pop up on here, you all know that.

I know this isn't the point- but why is chess even separated by sex in the first place?

If you read the article:

Only eight per cent of players in organised chess in Germany are women, and female-only tournaments have been a way to encourage them to compete in a sport dominated by men and that male competitors are statistically better at.

“The difference is particularly clear at the top: the men’s national team, for example, plays two classes higher than the women’s team,” Jussupow said.

The reasons for this were not fully known and had not been researched enough, she said.

Possibly due to issues such as positive action.

Chess is overwhelmingly a male pastime. There are very few women that take part in this activity.

For whatever reason that may be, it is certainly a reasonable thing that women might be encouraged to take part by the holding of separate women only competitions.

It's similar in motor racing. That is an overwhelmingly male sport. But I just noticed on Netflix that there is a series covering a female only racing series (F1: The Academy) that aims to get more women in to the higher levels of motor sport.

German legislation just asks for this, of course. If you let people "change sex" at the drop of a hat...

Such hypocritical nonsense! What difference does it make whether a man transitioned last week or last year? What difference does it made whether he's just changed his documentation or had surgical body modifications? Why should any of that have a bearing on whether he can compete in the women's competitions?

“We must prevent abuse,” Jussupow said.“If someone really wants to live permanently as a woman and even undergo a sex change, then I don’t see any problems at all. But we should prevent men from changing their gender just to win a title or get attractive prize money advertised for women. Then the other women are simply being discriminated against.”

FGS being a woman isn’t a prize you get because you try really hard (maybe including some extreme surgical body modification)

Archive (with a different picture). https://archive.ph/kvIij

For whatever reason that may be, it is certainly a reasonable thing that women might be encouraged to take part by the holding of separate women only competitions.

Chess has struggled for years with the politics of sex, even before the trans thing. I think it's possible to make a principled feminist case both for and against separate tournaments for women and girls. (If there was no segregation by sex then a bonus would be that the trans issue would disappear in a puff of logic.)

I've seen it argued that having separate tournaments for women is itself sexist (because it implicitly suggests that women can't compete equitably with men, which is true for tennis or football but really isn't for chess). But then it turns out that if you say to young girls "You have to play with the boys", many don't want to, as the quoted text implies (and it's true - I have been involved in organising chess for children and the reluctance of girls to play with boys is a real issue. A chess tournament involves quite a bit of talking with your peers, and girls can easily feel left out when the boys start messing about with rowdy "bughouse" games between sessions.)

There is obviously no physiological reason why a woman can't compete fairly against a man in a game of chess. However, as noted above, less than 10% of young chess players are girls, and among adults at club level it's probably less than 5%. Chess organisers have been trying to fix this for many decades and women are certainly not unwelcome in chess clubs. They just don't push on the door of the club room (often upstairs in a pub, formerly a smoky pub) very often.

Thank you very much - hopefully the sunlight pouring in will help! X

To share any article from any pay wall just got to

https://archive.ph

Paste in your link and get an archive version. It's free and legal and works for anything.

Women and girls should have their own tournaments for the same reason we have schemes to encourage them into STEM subjects and professions. They don't lack the intellectual capacity but they are otherwise pushed aside by males.
Just to fuse this with another current topic, Rachel Reeves and her sister Ellie are both talented tournament chess players. I went to a book launch of Rachel Reeves book about the history of women economists. She recounted a story about a mixed junior chess tournament in which a boy said to his friend who was drawn against Rachel 'you're really lucky being drawn against a girl'. He clearly thought it was hilarious 'but he wasn't laughing when I beat him'. Women always have to overcome being put down by men and then deploy their skills to succeed. Men don't have to do the first bit.

In an activity where opponents sit opposite each other, facing each other, you don't want boys opposite girls, because the moaning and the sex noises will make her never want to play chess again. Ask any teacher to explain this to you.

IIRC a few years ago one of the major chess bodies (World Chess??) decided not to allow TW in women’s competitions. Their reasoning was something like - we don’t know why chess is male dominated but it is. Until we know it’s best to keep women’s competitions single sex.

Chess players being thoughtful, strategic and far sighted eh? Who’d have thought it.

Do you understand that the problem is the behaviour? "boys will be boys" should never be an acceptable reason to change what women can and can not achieve, you are actively siding with childish misogyny in order to be transphobic.

What? Have you never met a well-brought-up young man?

I think you are making an assumption about the PP's views based on no evidence.

If there is bad behaviour in a competition, the organisers should be spotting it and removing the misbehaving player from the competition. Sexualised and sexist behaviour should be unacceptable.

Exactly! 2 of my friends are great at chess, neither experienced this kind of behavior at tournaments. Incredible it's not slapped down. V sad if thus kind of opportunity for healthy boy-girl activity is lost.