#BidenErasedWomen is trending because of "trans women in sports" again.

I refuse to engage with transphobic nonsense, but I want to take this as a teaching opportunity.

One legitimate-sounding question is: why don't trans people compete in their own category?

1/

In chess, there is a unrestricted and a Women's World Championship, as well as championships for most national federations. There are also unrestricted Master titles, as well as women's titles. Women's titles are 200 points lower than unrestricted titles.

2/

Its a very old-school, second-wave feminist thing, and I think its dumb- it implies that women can't compete with men for whatever reason, and its not like its a physical sport.

But anyway, that's the system that's in place, and we have to work within the space that exists.

3/

The United States Chess Federation (USCF) has implemented a rule in the past couple years that says gender marker has to match the birth certificate (explicitly not necessarily the original BC), but I can't find instances of that rule actually being used by trans people.

4/

The International Chess Federation (FIDE) doesn't have any regulations on this.

All of my chess results are from pre-transition, and my USCF history is still under my deadname.

The thing is, "trans women in chess" is completely untested.

5/

There's a story about a trans woman winning the Women's State Championship in some southern US State in the early to mid 90s, and a WFM in Europe who has a Wikipedia article that says she's trans, but I couldn't find sources for either of those so its apocryphal.

6/

I talked to the President of the Chess Federation of Canada (CFC) about my situation, and he said it would be fine, but I have a sinking feeling that it would probably come up as an issue once I actually start playing and appearing on national Top 100 Women's lists.

7/

So there's often a question about if trans women can earn women's titles and compete in women's events. And there's always the one guy in the back of the room that suggests having a third category.

8/

But the thing is, if that category were to exist, then- besides that it just sounds really silly- its unclear how many people would actually be competing in the category, and I get the feeling I would just be winning everything by a landslide.

9/

The USCF runs a US Blind Championship every year. Jessica Lauser, a woman living in my home state of Missouri, wins the event every single year, and it is not close.

Lauser doesn't have any competition in this event; she just shows up and beats up on randoms.

10/

Its not that blind people can't play chess- go check out some blind chess boards on google images, its really cool- its just that there aren't enough blind people for this competition to be meaningful, and the intersection of "blind" and "good at chess" is very, very small.

11/

You see where I'm going?

As cool as it would be for me to be "World Champion" of something, it wouldn't actually mean anything, since I would just be showing up every year and collecting it.

The whole point of having awards is to have events to compete for them in.

12/

I mean, I'm good at chess, but I'm definitely not good enough to have a world championship sitting on my mantle. I'm sure I would face some token resistance in that event, but "winning because the population is small" is not meaningful competition.

13/

I've obviously made a serious effort to find other high rated trans chess players, but I've come up completely empty-handed.

So I'm pretty sure a lot of these events would be just me beating up on people rated 600+points lower.

14/

Fortunately, chess isn't quite as gender-restricted as other disciplines, so I can play in open events without raising questions, but I plan on playing in women's events.

I'm unsure if I want to accept women's titles, but that's for unrelated reasons.

15/

The point is: Putting trans people in our own category in many cases just means "go off and play by yourself and leave us alone". There just aren't enough of us, and the intersection of "good at X" and "is trans" is small enough that having competitions is not meaningful.

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