If women were treated equally at the highest level of chess they would only have <1% representation as of 2021.

There is only one woman in the top 100 ELO currently.

If women were held to the same intellectual standards of men in chess, they would only exist as rare, near singular phenomena, and then THAT would, rightfully, be called misogyny.

If you want to compete at the highest level, you must first compete--if you cannot compete, then you are not competing--it's built into the concept a priori. White men who are hateful are all for affirmative action because it keeps the weak weak. You can imagine Don Draper smiling and typing back whiskey while the victims are given handouts--resented by the rest of humanity, wrongfully or rightfully--this is how they make their racist fantasies racist realities.

I don't think it's an intellectual shortcoming either: it may even be that men are just mentally ill when it comes to excellence in competition and not excellence for its own sake, which I think more women are open minded enough to see; and, that men are more likely to take things "too far."

Men also had to swallow that computers--built by people of diverse backgrounds and genders--are far better at calculating chess outcomes, and someone might complain that computer constructors should be allowed to enter AI and have it ELO ranked.

On top of all this, I think chess would be delighted with female stars especially after Queen's Gambit. I can't imagine they would turn down the massive amounts of money that would generate (see formula W drivers/Danica Patrick) even if all they did was ALMOST win.

At some point reality sets and you're left with only hard truths. The hard truth about chess is that it's a war fantasy computation board game probably invented by and for male brain reward structure.

Women are proving much more capable than men in society, which is what matters, but if they want to win at chess or backgammon or go or shogi they're going to have to develop an insane priority structure where you would sooner skin your mother alive than lose.

That isn't what I'm saying, I agree the transphobia is just transphobia.

I'm trying to talk about why this issue confuses so many people, and why people that aren't well educated on gender often fall for the transphobes bullshit when it comes to the "fairness" in sport shit, as well as guess at a possible way to recontextualize this "debate" in a way that benefits trans people.

Skill and talent aren't cleanly split along gender lines just because that is a convenient way to split the leagues. If these transphobes are so concerned about "fairness" then we should have more leagues for all sports delineated by something besides gender, I recommend weight class. Or, if the point was for women to have a space, then it should be a space for all women, and trans women should be allowed to participate. That second option is the one I would pick.