Originally published at: Man wears burka as disguise to enter women's chess championship | Boing Boing
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Nice use of passive tense there.
Something tells me this incident will be used to further stigmatize both Muslim women and actual trans people.
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He is exactly what TERFs say trans women athletes are: a “mediocre male” (the term they use) seeking an unfair advantage.
(He is said to be a “strong” player, but it fits otherwise.)
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So bizarre that chess tournaments are gendered. I get it for most athletics, where there are often significant size and strength differences. But chess?
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Because the chess world is pretty misogynistic [ETA: grammar correction] and it’s the men seeking to keep women out as much as possible. 
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That article has a pretty damning bit:
The English international master Jovanka Houska believes this smaller pool has knock-on effects in other areas, particularly when it comes to being the only one or two girls in a group. “We have situations where the girls don’t feel very comfortable playing, whilst the boys can hang around, make friends and play amongst themselves and get better that way,” she says.
Is sexism also a factor? “It is, sadly,” says Houska. “It’s mainly because there are so few women playing. And it’s reinforced by national federations who don’t publicise your achievements to help you with funding. When I look at the situation across Europe, I see a lot of top women players fighting their federations for basic things.”
There is also a far darker side in all this. Last year the women’s Fide master Alexandra Botez, who is also the most popular female chess streamer, spoke of her shocking experiences in the sport and warned: “In chess so much predatory behaviour has been normalised.”
…which also reinforces @anon61221983’s point above - that Men’s chess is wholly univiting (and downright abusive) to Women enough that Women prefer to play together, and that Men of course use that as an excuse to downplay the value of Women’s chess to begin with.
How positively charming a community they have there. Make Women feel unwelcome, then when they form their own subcommunity, diminish it by using it as “proof” they aren’t as good as Men to begin with. 
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My friend has some real horror stories of how men who are coaches push out girls pretty early on (kindergarten/first grade level). They do not get the support that they need to thrive in the chess world, because the older, often white, male coaches do not believe that women have an aptitude for the game.
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Cheating by wearing a Burqua is bad enough, but did anyone check to see if his bum was buzzing?
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That checks.
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That’s another thing to worry about with regard to male coaches.
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But everyone knows that trans women are terrible at chess. It’s biological.
Trans guys are aces at chess.
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None of the bigots ever rant about transmen playing men’s sports. They don’t get it at all, do they?
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Trans women competing against cis women is considered unfair to cis women on the grounds that trans women have natural advantages as “males”.
Trans men competing against cis men is not considered unfair to cis men, on the grounds that trans men don’t have any natural advantages.
I guess they’ve never seen me on the softball field. I mean - I haven’t had testosterone in my system for 40 years.
Edit:
Also - pretty tiny compared to Britney Griner.
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The only sport I was any good at was association football, and even then only in goal.
I am about average height for a womens goalkeeper (and they are all far better than I was), but the TERs will still assume that I am Tomáš Holý.
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