With these new rules, FIDE has managed to
- Imply the mental inferiority of women
- Validate the existence of transgender men
- Destroy the integrity of awards record-keeping
- Call transgender women men
Very nice, FIDE, incredible mental gymnastics performance! 👏 Add them to the ever lengthening sports federation shitlist.
IMO you've hit the nail on the head.
These conflicts and confusions are the consequences of gendered leagues, but because the issues come up in the context of transgender people, it makes it seem like an issue with transgender people.
Buuut then there is the issue of the representation of women in (most) popular professional sports is much lower, and would be worse without this delineation along gender lines.
So what we need is to make up our mind if we want either:
All sports to be as fair at all times as physically possible
Or
If we want to see all genders fairly represented in popular professional sports
If it is the first, we should ungender the leagues. If it is the second, we should stop worrying about it and let transgender people compete wherever they want.
"the transphobia is because we gave the women their own space, that was our mistake"
No, it was because of transphobia
That isn't what I'm saying, I agree the transphobia is just transphobia.
I'm trying to talk about why this issue confuses so many people, and why people that aren't well educated on gender often fall for the transphobes bullshit when it comes to the "fairness" in sport shit, as well as guess at a possible way to recontextualize this "debate" in a way that benefits trans people.
Skill and talent aren't cleanly split along gender lines just because that is a convenient way to split the leagues. If these transphobes are so concerned about "fairness" then we should have more leagues for all sports delineated by something besides gender, I recommend weight class. Or, if the point was for women to have a space, then it should be a space for all women, and trans women should be allowed to participate. That second option is the one I would pick.