The world’s top chess federation has ruled that transgender women cannot compete in its official events for females until an assessment of gender change is made by its officials.

  • Not_Alec_Baldwin@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    13
    arrow-down
    28
    ·
    1 year ago

    Sorry to be contrarian here, but at the high competitive level chess is a cardiovascular challenge. If you listen to serious chess players talk about playing it’s not just a simple mental exercise.

    High performing chess players have a higher HRV. Chess grandmasters might be sitting still but their body is undergoing a high degree of stress. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2019-14359-001

    Men statistically have higher HRV on average, and the outliers are even more extreme. https://www.whoop.com/ca/en/thelocker/normal-hrv-range-age-gender/

    So when you enter into a competitive environment it’s just nicer to know you have a MORE level playing field.

    I know chess specifically is controversial with regards to gender stuff and I’m not saying it’s perfect. I’m just saying that there are real reasons to support separate brackets.

    • Anonymousllama@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      11
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Pretty typical for here to see a post with actual sources and instead of people doing their own research they instead want to downvote and dog-pile. You can be upset with the outcome but there are reasons behind it (and it’s not just them jumping on the trans bashing bandwagon, they outlined exactly why it was done and how it works for male-female transitions and vice versa)

      • Claidheamh@slrpnk.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        11
        ·
        1 year ago

        It’s not an “actual source”, it’s a shit source. N=16, really? Barely qualifies as a study.

      • Ultraviolet@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        1 year ago

        Providing a source doesn’t make a statement unchallengeable, especially if the source is deeply flawed.