They closed the comments, let's talk about it here.

A number of women profit from having predators in power who hire them and play the game, to the detriment of everyone else.

Men tend to play by (or break) whichever rules are set but we have a double standard here. "Pretty privilege" and "metoo" are incompatible.

Either women want to be objectified or they do not, and the attractive ones want to cash in, as evidenced by the female streamers who earn more than champions.

What do you expect when:

1. A business associate of Andrew Tate's is on the cover of Chess Life.

2. A high-ranking woman in chess comes from a mafia family. The mafia sex-trafficks women.

3. Another high-ranking woman in chess doused her two year-old with hot sauce when he refused to study chess.

4. USCF publishes the top 100 girls' lists, with full name and age, down to age seven. Combine this with having OTB tournaments in hotels in the middle of nowhere, with announced preentries, and The Queens' Gambit sanitizing both chess tournaments and the degenerates who tend to populate them, and they become easy targets for predators.

5. An OTB tournament chess game offers more privacy than a dinner date, as communication devices are not used, and the activity is literally shared. An attractive woman is being forced to sit across the board from a man who might repulse her, might prey on her, might creep on her for hours, and might DM her or worse after the game. Why should a woman make herself a sitting duck?

Many men learn how to play chess in prison, or live "hustler" lifestyles where they regularly commit low-level crime, yet women and underaged girls are supposed to respect these men, interact with them in hotels over long weekends, sit across the board from them, etc.

I can see why women don't play tournament chess. I'd rather they go to the e-sport model where everyone has a booth, and stays in their home arcades. There is no reaon to put a target on women's backs.

To those who disagree, if you want a discussion of sensitive topics, you'll get a lot of different opinions. This is mine.

Yes but keep an open mind, learn about the subject matter which you care so passionately about and change your opinions as you learn.

Expressing ignorant opinions on a public forum on a subject like this can cause unnecessary hurt. It might best not to voice them at all.

Or make your convictions even firmer

Ugly truths have ugly causes. Get over it.

"get over it" - get over what?

LOL...another pointless gender/hate/ social conservative (take your pick) thread. Sooner or later they always creep up to the chasm of bigotry, then go full-on lemming, hurl themselves over the edge ,and get locked.

only if you post something like that, we are here to have a reasonable, constructive conversation

"Even ignorant people have a right to have an opinion"

...and they have the right to not be taken seriously.

Thanks for this comment. It's a wonderful illustration of how bigotry works.

I've now read the articles now, and my summary is: At the end of the day, like I said before, chess is a sport and sport is bound to have numerous allegations of cheating, assault, etc... that's unavoidable. Locking the comments section really isn't a good thing, sure that does mean no unnecessary inflammation happens there, but it shouldn't be that a forum had to be created to encourage discussion.

On the first article specifically, if we take a look at other sports and eSports (I'll count that in since it is a "sport" and it applies just as much to eSports as well) you'll see that complaints are made to specific individuals. I don't usually like finger-pointing, but if you're trying to generalise a sport's community based off of the few bad apples, you're going to see every community is negative. That's like saying India is terrible because ~90% of the scam calls you get come from India (No hate or offense to our Indian friends, most of your population are awesome <3). Compare that to when the finger is pinned at someone, that usually gets a response that can clarify things more, which has been seen, time and time again. The open letter can't really solve much if all you're doing is saying that you got assaulted at chess tournaments. Sorry if it happened to you, but also we can't really solve the issue if the offender isn't being pointed out.

The other articles I haven't quite got much of a comment on, since it bases off of what I said above.
Also, it seems the last few posts have been about trolls flaming others. Constructive criticism? I don't think so.

You have a right to your own opinion. You don't have a right to your own facts. And for facts I'll go with the AMA and APA as authorities in the area of "is being transgender a real thing" vs 'I dunno, it's just weird and doesn't make any sense to me'. And changing one's opinion based on newly understood facts is important, vs "I'm hardening my opinion because someone is disagreeing with me".
Here, I'll go first. I said earlier in a thread that trans folks brains are closer to their correct gender than their assigned-at-birth gender. I decided to dig into that and, not only is it a myth, so it is also a myth that male and female brains are inherently different in the first place.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90630371/brain-sex-isnt-a-thing-the-latest-research-debunks-the-myth-again

Science says a lot of politically incorrect things that people don't say "embrace the science" over.

Some have a theory that trans politics is actually a social-compliance test to see if people can be convinced of anything.

Chess shouldn't really have gender-based events anyway it's the one game where this shouldn't matter, though let me say I'm heartbroken that FIDE won't let me compete for the US women's championship.

I shouldn't have said "get over it."

I was simply saying that anything with a negative outcome tends to have a negative cause that if "discussed" will lead to negativity.

It is amusing to see how you put on display your own ignorance:

big·ot·ry [ˈbiɡətrē] NOUN

unreasonable attachment to a belief, opinion in particular prejudice against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group.

interesting point of view

banssd

”We live in a feminist and effeminate culture. Because of this, at best, as a people we are uneasy with masculinity, and with increasing regularity, whenever it manages to appear somehow, we call for someone to do something about it.” -Douglas Wilson

I am pleased that we live in a feminist culture, it's a very good thing indeed. And is it effeminate? Perhaps, but I'm fine with that too. With so much toxic masculinity in the world, effeminacy seems reasonable to me. And yes, I am male.