FIDE rule banning trans women chess players from women only events stirs up debate

The International Chess Federation (FIDE), the sport's world governing body, has decided bar players who have transitioned from male to female, from participating in women’s only events. And a huge debate has ensued. The policy, approved by FIDE’s council at a meeting earlier this month, will come into effect on August 21.

As per the new policy, transgender players may only participate in the ‘open’ category of tournaments — but not in those earmarked for women only.

Speaking out against the move, French transwoman chess player Yosha Iglesias took to her X (formerly Twitter) handle to say, “So FIDE just published (yesterday) a list of anti-trans regulations like it was ‘the biggest threat of women in chess’. Can someone tell me what qualifies as an official FIDE event? Will I be allowed to play in the French Championship in 3 days? The European Club Cup in September?.”

US-based advocacy group National Center for Transgender Equality has criticized the decision too. “Really? Chess? This is so insulting to cis women, to trans women, and to the game itself,” it wrote on X. “It assumes that cis women couldn’t be competitive against cis men — and relies on ignorant anti-trans ideas.”

The amended policy says that once a player informs FIDE that they are changing their gender from male to female, they will be banned from competing in official women’s events. Players then have to provide what FIDE describes as “sufficient proof or a gender change that complies with their national laws and regulations”.

At that point, according to the updated policy, FIDE will carry out an analysis and make a decision on the player’s participation “at the earliest possible time, but not longer than within a two-year period”.

Incidentally, a majority of professional chess tournaments are considered open, with only a select few — including the Women’s World Chess Championship — dedicated to just women. The new regulations also state that if a player holds a women’s title, but changes their gender to male, the title will be seen as "abolished". However, if the gender change is from male to female, all previous titles will remain eligible.

Eligibility rules in sports such as track and field or swimming have caused controversy in the past with middle-distance runner Caster Semenya’s protracted battle standing out. The South African 800 m runner won a potential landmark legal decision for sports in July, when the European Court of Human Rights decided she was discriminated against by rules in track and field that force her to medically reduce her natural hormone levels to participate in major competitions.

India witnessed a similar controversy in 2014 when Dutee Chand — national women's 100 m champion and only the third Indian woman to qualify for her event at the Olympics — was dropped from India's Commonwealth Games contingent after the Athletics Federation of India decided that hyperandrogenism made her ineligible to compete as a female athlete. Chand challenged the decision and won the right to compete in 2015.

Hyperandrogenism — or an excess of certain 'male hormones' or androgens — is a medical condition which makes a female athlete ineligible to participate in international sports and the Olympics, on grounds that the condition gives them an unfair physical advantage over women with normal levels of androgens. The most common androgen is testosterone, but while popularly considered a 'male hormone', it is actually present at optimal levels in both sexes—in fact, we would all die (or transmogrify into Spongebob Squarepants maybe?) if we didn't have some, irrespective of sex and gender.

However, unlike track and field or swimming, where hormone levels may determine performance to an extent, chess is a cerebral sport — which makes FIDE's new policy puzzling.

It is a separate story that international professional chess essentially remains a boys' club. Only about 15 per cent of professional chess players are women, according to FIDE statistics, and less than 40 of the more than 1,600 international chess grandmasters are women.

And yet, many of these women — most notably Judit Polgar, the now retired Hungarian ace — have routinely played and won against men.

Which is why FIDE’s decision seems particularly unfortunate given the gender imbalance in international chess, though it may be an attempt to align with multiple sports governing bodies which have introduced policies to address the issue of trans athletes in recent years.

World Aquatics, for example, has launched a new open category which will welcome swimmers of ‘’all sex and gender identities”.

Earlier this year, World Athletics (WA) prohibited athletes who have gone through what WA called “male puberty” from participating in female world rankings competitions. WA said the exclusion would apply to “male-to-female transgender athletes”.

Why FIDE feels the need to adhere to such parameters in a sport like chess is, of course, as yet unclear. As Iglesias wrote in a related X post, "If you want to help women in chess, fight sexist and sexual violence, give women in chess more visibility and more money. Don't use trans women players as scapegoats."