At a recent tourney i was playing at, there was a $1000 prize for the first female participant. There was a player who was playing for this prize, however, it was not alltogether clear that this player was in fact born a woman! Anyone have oppinions on if they should be eligible for such a prize. Similarly several years ago in Texas. The Texas womens champion was also not born a woman!
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renée_Richards
As this Wikipedia links shows, this issue has come up before, and it extends beyond any one sport. However, since Renee Richards was never able to win a string of Wimbledon Women’s Champion titles, the full weight of the issue never demanded a definitive decision or consensus from the public.
I doubt the IOC would allow a formerly-male Olympic sprinter to run in the women’s 100 meter dash after undergoing trans-gender surgery; but I could be wrong.
In chess, women are as capable as men. Elizabeth Paetz and Ruslan Goletiani have said the problem is more that 20-25 year women become interested in other aspects of life while their male counterparts can remain laser focused on just two things, one being chess.
So the whole concept of a man competing in the women’s chess realm is a bit foggier than in other sports.
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That’s pretty vague for them to say. Besides chess and that same other thing 
, what are these other pressing occupations that are distracting the women? Stock car racing? Mathematics? Poetry?
If women are as good as men, and I’m not disagreeing, then the simpler question is why there’s a “women’s chess realm” at all. Without that, all these impossible questions would disappear. But as long as it’s there, I’m all for greater participation in it, by anyone who is currently a woman. Can you imagine as a TD trying to verify what someone’s gender was at birth? Whereas one can use a driver’s license or other document to determine current gender.