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Clarissa's Blog 
A new swallow on trans rights? Are you for or against it? Why is chess separated by gender at all?
// New guidelines from the International Chess Federation appear to ban trans women from participating in women’s chess tournaments for at least two years.
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trans women are specifically prohibited from competing in the women’s category until FIDE makes a further decision on the matter, which could take up to two years. They may play in the open category, however. Trans men, on the other hand, do not appear to be prohibited from playing in the men’s category.
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chess is not a physical sport, and FIDE’s guidelines appear to suggest that one’s assigned gender at birth also impacts the brain and that cisgender men hold an intellectual advantage over others.
FIDE also offers inconsistent guidelines when it comes to titles. Male-to-female trans players are allowed to keep any titles they earned before transitioning, while female-to-male trans players must relinquish any titles earned before their gender change.
https://www.newsnationnow.com/lgbtq/chess-federation-bans-trans-women-playing-womens-games/
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Yes, it’s really strange how women don’t try to get into male sports while men are crowding female sports. Neither do women try to get into men’s prisons.
We all know the answer but we are pretending that it’s all a mystery.
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I actually used to know, casually, a lady who was at very elite levels in a popular sport that has little or nothing to do with physical fitness. Top of the game on the women’s side. She wanted, in a huge way, to compete on the mens’ side, because there was more prize money, more prestige, and more competitions, for men. Fought pretty hard for it.
Never happened. Pretty sure it wasn’t sex discrimination that kept her out. Even in that sport, men are just better.
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If we want women to be in sport of any kind, we need to defend women’s teams and leagues. This should be really obvious but somehow it isn’t.
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Completely obvious to anybody paying attention that once you end the sex divide in sports, there will be no women’s sports. At all.
It’s a free country, if people want to argue that women suck at everything compared to men, so there’s no point wasting money on women’s sports, whatever. Let them talk. I mean, most people will think they’re assholes and the problem will then solve itself, right? The problem is that nobody’s forcing them to be honest in public: they want to take resources set aside for women: prize money, scholarships, college athletics funding, etc. and they want to hand that over to men, and make it unavailable to women, whenever a man happens to want it.
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This has to happen on a large scale (in the short run) to maximally undermine the idea of blank slatism.
“Evolution only happens from the neck down” lol we shall see.
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Blank slatism has been a curse on humanity. And the funny thing is that it’s the favorite idea of the self-declared pro-science crowd.
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“Even in that sport, men are just better.”
Well, most sports are, at their evolutionary base organized around male social roles and strengths…. either symbolic warfare (pretty much any team sport), duels (tennis), combinations thereof (cricket?), sperg fests (golf) or fitness exhibitions to impress (especially female) onlookers (track and field).
Note how the sports where the women’s divisions are the main draw are largely about being judged for being graceful (figure skating, gymnastics, synch swimming….)
That doesn’t mean that other women’s sports aren’t worthwhile (I’ve always prefered womens tennis to the men’s game and women’s volleyball is also more interesting I think) but the focus will and should be qualitatively different.
But humoring a bunch of aggressive аutоgуneрhilеs* is apparently now the most important agenda of all sports….
*weird typeface…. I mix in cyrillic and/or greek letters on some sensitive words to try to make sure that those searching out ideological fights won’t find them….
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The sport in question is… billiards. If you look up photos of the top players, in any year, you’ll likely see paunchy old dudes in that mix, and probably some slouchy rat-faced skinny guys too. Whatever it is, this is not about “peak physical fitness” or even the more obvious physical advantages conferred by testosterone in puberty– wider shoulders, that sort of thing. More like extremely fine motor control and being able to mentally calculate trajectories. The top players are all still men, and the women have to have their own league, the WPBA.
Last I checked the prize money is peanuts, and there are no college billiards scholarships… so I think it’s no surprise there aren’t hordes of lipsticked men trying to play on the women’s side. It’s all about the money.
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“question is… billiards”
Another sperg fest!
“fine motor control and being able to mentally calculate trajectories”
Figuring out where to throw the rock (or aim the spear or arrow) to kill a bird or monkey for dinner….
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Seems plausible.
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el is 100% correct in calling out this nonsense.
FIDE is saying that biological men (however they self-identify) should not be allowed to compete in chess games against biological women because the women are too stupid for it to be a fair match.
Didn’t the Women’s Liberation feminists settle the “Sisterhood Is Powerful” issue addressing mythical male superiority way back in the 1970s?
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Not being able to play chess doesn’t make one stupid. Chess requires a certain kind of thinking that is definitely much weaker in women. It’s a biological function with no moral component. Like IQ. If we invest it with meaning beyond the strictly biological, that’s on us.
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