How are you tracking them to other sites? There's not really anything that links a user account to an actual person in the data that gets federated.

I believe that’s officially a variant rule. The system itself works fine without a grid. It can be done completely in the theater of the mind.

The grid is just commonly used because it simplifies movement and positioning greatly.

Yes, why waste so much time trying to prosecute obviously protected expression?

I honestly like the number eleven for the division in the US. There’s even a nice map.

I think women’s leagues have their place still. Or some kind of system to encourage more women into chess. There’s currently 15.7k men with titles and only 4k women with titles. Until those numbers get closer I would want to see some kind of action taken.

If you want to get radical with women’s league you can just have the requirement for them to declare that you are a woman. It can quite literally be a checkbox on a forum when registering. Social pressure will take care of most of the issues. The edge case of men regesterioin bad faith can be handled on a case by case basis.

The gendered leagues exist to promote women in chess. They need to do this because women have historically been discriminated against. These new rules feel like they are asking trans women to prove they are oppressed enough to deserve to play in women’s leagues.

Some of the requirements for the change in status is problematic as well.

the National Rating Officer should require from the player sufficient proof of a gender change that complies with their national laws and regulations.

That is a hard requirement to meet in large chunks of the world. Many countries don’t legally recognize gender change so it may be quite literally impossible to comply with “national laws and regulations.” There’s some carve out for asylum and refugee status. But it is possible to be a trans woman in a country, not be able to legally change your gender, and not feel unsafe enough to seek asylum.

I’m reading more on the titles now. So from the actual FIDE document:

If a player holds any of the women titles, but the gender has been changed to a man, the women titles are to be abolished. Those can be renewed if the person changes the gender back to a woman and can prove the ownership of the respective FIDE ID that holds the title. The abolished women title may be transferred into a general title of the same or lower level (e.g., WGM may be transferred into FM, WIM into CM, etc.).

And from what [FIDE titles]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIDE_titles) are on Wikipedia. It seems there is an underlying misogyny in how women’s titles work. It seems to me the proper solution is to get rid of the separate title requirements.

analysis of individual cases that could take up to two years.

They are already getting ready to drag their feet. The other policies announced here aren’t much better. In particular:

Holders of women’s titles who change their genders to male would see those titles “abolished,” the federation said

There’s no reason for that. What does transitioning have to do with past titles. It all reeks of transphobia.

I think you mean RTFM. But in this case it's WTFM so I can RTFM.