Fury as UK’s only all-female chess team promoted – then told they must recruit a man
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/jul/31/uk-female-chess-team-league-rule-men-join-sport
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/jul/31/uk-female-chess-team-league-rule-men-join-sport
12 Comments
eestileib@sh.itjust.works · 46 pts · 29d
Cool, bring a trans woman and tell them to get fucked.
magnetosphere@fedia.io · 18 pts · 29d
Pissing Rowling off would just be a bonus, but a major one.
Tiresia@slrpnk.net · 20 pts · 29d
That's more sympathetic than I was expecting. I wonder if they're even allowed to set an "at least one woman" rule without running afoul of UK law.
4am@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 29d
Jesus how many players have to be on the team?
There’s more than two genders, are all the teams without a nonbinary person DQ’d? Don’t see many pansexuals on the rosters
naught101@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 29d
Sexuality is not gender?
erin@piefed.blahaj.zone · 7 pts · 29d
I'm pansexual but that has nothing to do with my gender. You might mean pangender or omnigender, which are often associated underneath a wider non-binary or genderfluid umbrella.
4am@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 28d
Damnit, you’re right. I was typing quickly and I confused the terms! Sorry.
MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 29d
Get bent!
Wren@lemmy.today · 5 pts · 29d
Like the only two options are following the rule and abolishing the rule. For a representative from a chess league he sure as hell has a hard time seeing the whole board. It's either that or a willful ignorance that favors breaking up the only all-women team.
SGG@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 29d
In the chess world it's all black and white. (Sorry I had to).
The original wording would have been back when female participation was that low that even a single female player per team was an improvement. At least that is my assumption.
A rule forbidding all male teams while allowing all female teams may get challenged in court so I can see why they are hesitant to do that.
Wren@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 29d
That's... exactly what the article says.
cRazi_man@europe.pub · 3 pts · 28d
It's not unusual that a rule might stand against the spirit in which it was originally made. Happens all the time actually. It just needs someone sensible to step in and say "implementation like this would be against the spirit of the game and the rule". Although then next time some all male team will object and say that the rule should be bent for them as well, and then turn it into some sort of discrimination court case. Then those who bent the rules are pushed forward by the organisation to justify their own actions and the organisation falls back on saying "that wasn't according to our rules".
People in these comments are clearly annoyed.... But if you ever end up in a position of making and enforcing rules you'll realise that bullshit like this happens all the time and even if you try to do the right thing then it can blow up in your face. Even if they change the original rule, what is it supposed to say? "All woman teams can be allowed, but no all male teams will be allowed"?