….then your conclusion will be:
The reason elite international chess has some gendered categories is for positive discrimination; there’s a huge drop-off of girl chess players around the age of 13, and there’s a lot of evidence that where boys are steered towards the game, girls are steered away from it. It’s not a biological issue but a social one. The gendered categories are designed to boost inclusion of people who are not cisgender men, which of course is a category that should include trans women.
By observation we note that top chess players are real weirdoes. More men are weirdoes in this systemising thing that makes you good at chess. The reason for having the female category is so that some women, sometimes, can win something.
Having tackle cut off does not change that mental weirdness. Thus the continued distinction.
Amusingly, those who really are mentally women shouldn’t have the extreme systemising weirdness to be good at chess so therefore we should allow trans into women’s. It’s just that no one actually believes that “really are”.
So discriminating against women is sexist discrimination. But of course discriminating against men is positive discrimination.
And, for Bigmouth, saying ‘transwomen’ aren’t women is also discrimination. One does also suspect that all the ladies would combine in outrage at the thought that women shouldn’t be allowed into mens’ clubs or sports.
Carrie only pawn in game of life.
Elitist competitions designed to perpetuate the patriarchy
people who are not cisgender men, which of course is a category that should include trans women.
of course is doing an awful lot of work there, isn’t it? Since about 98% of people & 100% of the rational ones don’t agree with the “of course”. Not sure if delusion quite covers it, does it?
Granted, but it does rather broaden its scope.
Sticking beads up your anus that vibrate a sequence to move your castle to h5 transmitted by a mate on a computer upstairs is not going to be invented by the middle of the distribution.
The hours of practice and tuning to get that right
I don’t remember girls in the chess club at school. But then I dropped out pretty quickly, preferring Bridge.
At university I decided not to play bridge again, noting the number of people obsessed with it and ignoring their studies. Well, insofar as mathematicians and mathematical physicists are people.
Bridge has a similar sex distribution at the top level, and allows trans women to play as women. This happens, and has never yet created any public ill feeling.
In theory, bridge players ought to be a bit less weird than chess players, in that they have to have some understanding of their partner’s and opponents’ thinking. In practice, not so much.
Re Bridge:
It’s a while since I read it but in her book I Love This Game, Sabine Auken claimed that women wanted their own tournaments because the men could be quite boorish (my interpretation) and scruffy and that (some) women preferred to dress and behave with a bit more decorum.
It’s a while since I followed it but can and did enter the open events but it was rare for them to be at the top. She was one of the women that regularly held her own at the top with the men.
I doubt that gendered competitions are all that useful. The world’s best female chess player, who reached no. 8 in the world in 2004, Judit Polgár, had little interest in women-only competition. Both her sisters are also excellent players, and have played in women-only competitions, but always played a lot against boys and men (and beat most of them). All three were greatly encouraged into chess by their father, so if you really want top level female chess players, the evidence seems to be that the main change required is to encourage them to start young and devote themselves to it. Any who show promise will find there are plenty of boys they can beat.
Another transwoman, who plays chess and, how should I put this, is IMO a slightly more convincing trannie, disagrees with Carrie.
https://unherd.com/thepost/why-i-support-the-trans-ban-in-womens-chess/
That the very finest female player, ever, came 8 th out of 8 in W C – and is in fact the only woman to have qualified for WC – seems to me to be an arguemtn in favour of gendered competition….
from bravefart’s link “males have a large advantage over females in spatial ability and, to the extent that spatial ability contributes to chess performance, . I’m bad at parking the car, but any women seem worse. My first wife after reversing into a telephone pole insisted that it had moved.
I will say one thing about the men-in-frocks. I was reading yet another Julie Bindel whine the other day. Speaking as a white heterosexual male I seem to have been under a hail of abuse from successive waves of militant feminists for most of my adult life. The schadenfreude of seeing them on the receiving end is truly enjoyable. Almost everything they’re complaining is the same stuff they’ve been dishing out for years.
Tim, “If you get the reason wrong ….then your
conclusionsolution will be:”.Now if only you would use this logic regarding man made climate change.
Bis
Spot on – of course the trans campaigners are pederasts and paedophiles but you are entirely correct – feminists silenced men for decades and now the show is on the other foot they are crying foul. I’m of the Henry Kissinger opinion re the Iran- Iraq war frankly…
‘there’s a lot of evidence that where boys are steered towards the game, girls are steered away from it.’
Citation needed
BiS and V-P
I can only agree with your schadenfreude re the blokes-in-bikinis.
Which is the reason why I disagreed with my dear sister. I felt that if the blokes were to be kept out of women’s sports, the birds should be banned from men’s sports.
I must confess, the only sport I can work up any enthusiasm for is US gridiron football. It’s a game for real men. There are no Atlanta Squaws. It hasn’t produced any Gary Linnakers. There’s a distinct absence of amateur dramatics falling over. Last season a quarterback managed to finish a game on a badly sprained ankle from a particularly brutal tackle & still carrying the same injury in the next game managed a 50 yard rush. And nobody whines about anything. The words “We wuz robbed!” don’t seemed to have entered American English.
Apparently, we’re all supposed to be enthused by some team called the Pussycats performing in Aus today. Yawn. The feminisation of sport’s complete so why not trannysisation?
Chess is a fun game.
Have you not seen the Lingerie Football League?
@Tim Worstall – “seems to me to be an argument in favour of gendered competition”
Not if it is plausible that it is because far fewer girls took up chess. In that case the solution would be to stop the gendered assignment to different games.
Hmm. So, couple of centuries of human experience. We organise this this way. Current no 1 female chess player is – I am told – 85 in the world. Human experience leads to female only comps, so as to encourage the girlies instead of getting crushed by the boys.
Modern planners. Allow men into the female comps to encourage girls.
As you know from reading me around here I am not an instinctive supporter of the old way. I am willing to consider the point being solved by that old way. Here I really do think that the old way solves the very problem being complained of. The encouragement of girls into chess is increased by gendered competitions.
“there’s a lot of evidence that where boys are steered towards the game, girls are steered away from it.” It would be fascinating to read some evidence and read the girls’ reaction to the methods of said steering. Somehow I feel it exists only in a very special and secluded place called “Carrie’s imagination”
BiS.
Colin Kaepernick?
I played Bridge to county standard up to about 30 years ago, when my regular partner moved abroad. He also played Chess to a similar standard, and insisted there was less luck involved in Bridge tournaments. (He now represents England in over-65 competitions.)
Patrick Mahomes, Jimmers. One couldn’t help being impressed by his fortitude. Such a contrast with the girl’s game.
BiS, I think that Jimmers was wondering how Kaepernick fitted in with your “It hasn’t produced any Gary Linnakers” comment…