I've played in tournaments with players who are old, young, male, female, white, black, asian, etc. I've never seen any type of discrimination. For the most part, people don't even talk to each other. They just show up and play.
But I have had strangers talk to me between rounds or even come up to me in a cafe to talk chess, recognizing me from the tournament. Everyone has always been incredibly nice and respectful OTB. As others have said, online is a completely different story. Chess.com isn't exclusive, though. It's just everyone on the internet. But up until I blocked most communications on here, I don't know that I experienced descrimination. It was mostly guys hitting on me, sometimes relentlessly. No one ever assumed I was bad because I was female or made any gender-based insults/jokes.
I noticed you live in Oregon. Do you by chance know who Nick Raptis is?
OMG, she lives in Oregon. That explains everything. 'Willamette' is Modoc for, "the valley of the whales." Most women in Oregon are either whales or fat-headed. Fat-headed because there are only 9 of them in the State to go around.
what the hell is this comment
I agree, DavidPeters2. I was just using that as an example of how discrimination might happen without anyone even realizing it. I haven't found myself in that situation--I've been fortunate enough so far to avoid losing to a little kid at a tournament, although some have put the fear into me!