Statement on rules on transgender people in chess

Basic text

On 14 August 2023, FIDE published its new rules on transgender people in chess. They have been in force since 21 August. Under these rules, transgender people must prove their gender reassignment with official documents and may be banned from participating in women’s competitions for up to two years until their gender reassignment research is completed.

On 28 August 2023, the RBCF decided not to follow these rules. What this means in practice is that:

• That transgender people can take part in Belgian competitions according to the gender with which they identify.
• All changes of name, sex or other personal data are treated in the same way by the FRBE. Transgender people are therefore not obliged to provide documents concerning their sex change.
• In other words, the BCF will not send official documents to FIDE. In the event of a sex change, it will now be communicated that it is a registration error.

Argumentation

• Women should not be “protected” from transgender people. Transgender women are women.
• The underlying purpose of the regulation may be to discourage fraud (this is not explicitly stated in the text), but with this way of proceeding, every transgender person is treated as a suspect instead of only examining cases where fraud is suspected.
• When joining the FRBE, no identification is requested. It is contradictory to ask for this when modifying data and certainly to ask for it only from a specific minority group. The legality of such an approach is also questionable.
• Separate women’s tournaments and similar initiatives exist to support and motivate a minority group within the game of chess (less than 8% of affiliated Belgian chess players in May 2023 are women). Excluding an even smaller minority group is counterproductive.
• We are following countries like France and Germany in this area.
• Finally, what will FIDE do with the official documents sent to it? This certainly goes against the RGPD and privacy rules.