The future of transgender women’s participation in high-level women’s chess competitions seems uncertain, after the International Chess Federation introduced new regulations effectively barring many from women’s events for up to two years or more.
The sport’s international governing body, known as FIDE, approved new regulations at a council meeting this month, saying they would be in effect until “further analysis” could be done over the next two years. People who have changed their gender on their FIDE IDs will be able to compete in the “open” section of tournaments, according to the federation.
The regulations state that if the gender of a player “was changed from a male to a female” on their FIDE identification, the “player has no right to participate in official FIDE events for women” until a further decision is made.
A FIDE ID is an individual number assigned to a chess player by the federation. Official tournaments, ratings and more are linked to that number. The change appears to mostly affect chess players who changed their gender identity after signing up for a FIDE ID.
But Dana Reizniece-Ozola, the deputy chair of the organization’s management board, wrote in an email that “the new regulations do not specifically address eligibility of the…
