It's interesting that, for all the hullabaloo about trans women in sports, we don't hear transphobes talk about Annemarie Sylvia Meier.

Transphobes are desperate for examples of trans women "stealing" sports championships from cis women. In the absense of any prominent examples, they grasp at people like Lia Thomas, who once tied for 5th place in a college swim meet, and Imane Khelif, a cis woman.

Annemarie Sylvia Meier is a trans woman who won a national women's championship in a major sport in a large country. So why aren't transphobes talking about her 24/7?

I think there are two reasons.

The first is the sport Annemarie Sylvia Meier plays: chess. The IOC's new ban on intersex women applies to chess, and the FIDE already banned trans women in 2023. They previously implemented a de facto ban on trans men in 2001, when they started banning the use of testosterone.

However, transphobes don't like to talk about these bans. I suspect the main reason is that a ban on trans women from chess doesn't sound as good to transphobes' target audience: uninformed people.

No transphobic arguments hold up to scrutiny, but "trans women stealing sports championships from cis women" seems to play well with people who aren't informed about the subject. But even to someone with no prior knowledge of trans people, the idea of banning trans women from chess due to a "biological unfair advantage" leads to more confusion than anything else. Many people simply respond by asking why chess needs segregated leagues at all.

The other reason I think transphobes avoid talking about her is due to the time period in which Annemarie Sylvia Meier was most successful. She won the German national women's chess championship in 2003.

Transphobes like to talk about trans people as if we suddenly sprung into existence less than a year ago. They like to portray their policies as returning to the status quo that has existed since the beginning of human civilization until we ruined it. To acknowledge that trans people existed and were participating in society more than 20 years ago would undermine the carefully-crafted propaganda they have constructed.