The International Chess Federation (FIDE) has banned transgender women from women’s competitions, saying it needed a “thorough analysis of developments” that could take up to two years, Reuters reported.

The new rules, approved by the FIDE board this month, will come into force on August 21 and require transgender players to provide “sufficient evidence of gender change that is in accordance with the laws and regulations of their countries”.

“In the event of a change of gender from male to female, the player is not eligible to participate in official FIDE women’s competitions until FIDE decides otherwise,” the federation explained.

“FIDE recognizes that this is an evolving issue for chess and that, in addition to the technical rules on transsexuality, additional policies in line with scientific evidence may be needed in the future” more

This is stated in the press release.

A FIDE spokesman told Reuters on Thursday that the decision was made to better define the processes involved in changing a player’s gender.

“Transgender legislation is evolving rapidly in many countries and many sports organizations are adopting their own policies. FIDE will follow these developments to see how we can apply them to the world of chess,” he said.

FIDE says it does not want to “rush” transgender players

“Two years is a window of time that seems reasonable for a thorough analysis of such events. A certain deadline has been set for a new update of these policies without any haste,” he added.

The representative of FIDE also stated that transsexual players will still be able to participate in tournaments of the “Open” category.

FIDE’s decision is surprising given that most chess competitions are open to all players, regardless of gender, with the exception of only a few tournaments such as the Women’s World Championship.

Several global governing bodies for sports, including cycling, athletics and swimming, have recently tightened rules on the participation of transgender women in elite women’s competitions.

But for all of these sports, the decisions were made because of concerns about the competitive advantage of these individuals because they were born male.

Yosha Iglesias, a transgender chess player who holds the FIDE-ranked “master” title, said the new policy would cause “unnecessary harm” to transgender players and women.

“This terrible situation will lead to depression and suicide attempts,” Iglesias said, according to the BBC.

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