Has anyone challenged CCA's "Mixed doubles" yet?

For those of you not familiar, the Continental Chess Association has, for some time now, established a new practice whereby two people, who must be of the opposite sex, may form a "mixed doubles" team in a tounrament. Typical prizes for an average-sized CCA tounrament for mixed doubles is $600-$300.

Has nobody challenged this yet? CCA tounraments are not gender-specific tounraments (which should be just as unnacceptable as race-specific tounraments themselves, but that's another story), and all participants pay the same entry fee...but $900 or so in prizes is diverted into a separate category that heavily favors one gender? (Let's face it, 90% of females end up with a MD partner, while probably about 10-20% of males do).

The idea of having a "partner" for a chess tounrament is interesting...but the completely random gender requirement is the problem. Imagine the outrage if a tounrament required "one white, one minority" teams for something like this? That'd be "mixed doubles" too, right? But it wouldn't be done, because that's clearly wrong...and perhaps, though I'm not lawyer, borderline illegal. Just like this.

Just wondering if some legally-inclined chess player has challenged this practice, or if someone has made some mention of it to a CCA executive or to the USCF. Entry requirements based on something so completely irrelevant to chess as race, fingernail width, or gender have no place in the twenty-first century - especially when they're relying on entry fee money from those who, largely, are unable to participate in the "section" in question. 

I should also note that the problem would be less significant (though still existant...very existant) if there was a required, additional entry fee to join an MD team, and only that money was paid back in MD prizes. But this is not the case.

Hmm, why would this be illegal?

It's creating a system to make it so that anyone who was born female has a better chance of getting money, for the reason you pointed out. Female only tournaments do that too, but at least in that case there is the economic justification that people have enough interest in top females playing that they can get sponsors for them. Here, though, they aren't being watched online or anything so there seems to be no point to the unfairness.

The fairer way to do it would be to allow for any team of two; that way gender wouldn't increase your chances to win money. That's more boring I guess, but considering that the bigger tournaments offer pretty nice prizes it's not exactly a trivial concern.

You can set up a tournament in any way you want.  People either agree to pay and play or not.  I think at best you could say it's a symptom of a social issue.  I don't at all see how it's illegal.

I fail to see how teams of same-gendered people are any more "boring" than opposite-gendered teams. Isn't that a bit sexist?

I don't think the "people have an interest in top females" is any sort of valid excuse, either. If people had an interest in the top black baseball players, that wouldn't justify the Negro Leagues.

Yes, any team of two would be fine, and logical.

I'm shaky on the law here. The boyscouts, for example, are able to descriminate, because they're a private "club" of sorts, but if a business refused entry to blacks, for example, that could potentially be grounds for a descrimination lawsuit.

Legal or not, it's certainly unethical.

I fail to see why one painting is better than another, it's all colors to me.

You go a bit too far.  All individuals are different.  Yes, even male and females.  Male-male teams would be boring, to me and I'd guess most others.

Unless it's that fun variant where you alternate playing moves...

I'm just saying if I was a tournament director I wouldn't want it to be the case that, for everone entering a tournament, there are fewer slots for men to play in the mixed doubles just because of their gender. I would want it to be because of something else. I would feel for the people who want to be rewarded just on the basis of their play. Well, some would, some wouldn't, and that will depend in part on gender here. And if I could keep that from happening, I would.

Sorry, I don't understand why it's unethical either.  But I'm willing to read along and keep and open mind.

So why would a male-male team be any more boring than a male-female team? And even if they were, how does that justify sex descrimination?

Exactly, all individuals are different. It doesn't matter who's what gender, if it's two males or two females or one of both. Gender means absolutely nothing, except in a doctor's office or if you're trying to get pregnant. If society wants to pretend it does, fine (well, not fine, but you know what I mean), but there's a problem when it's sucking prize money away from me and countless others in chess tounraments.

"I fail to see how teams of same-gendered people are any more "boring" than opposite-gendered teams. Isn't that a bit sexist?"

Well, not really. Seeing people of two different genders is going to result in at least some sort of contrast, which can be interesting. It doesn't mean one gender is better than another for me to find a certain group more interesting for my tastes.

I don't get what you're not seeing. People are being excluded from something based on their gender, and forced to pay entry fees which fund the prizes for it. Is there any way someone could look at that and say "That sounds perfectly ethical?"

Why does forcing different genders create "contrast," but forcing different skin colors, different heights, different ethnicities, different religions, different fingernail widths, or different sexual oritentations probably sound abhorrant to you? Yes, they all create "contrast," but they're all extremely bigoted and have no place in modern society.

Oh, I see, you're right, the male players would necessarily have less opportunity to form a team.

I'll have to think about that.

Ah, but they're not forced to pay or enter anything.  And at least for myself, when I pay to enter a tournament, I think of it as covering the cost of holding the tournament, and the privilege to play serious players in a good environment.  I don't pay expecting to win anything.

Even if there were equal males and females (which there aren't), I should be able to team with who I please, without evaluating people based on their gender. Gender means about as much as fingernail width when it comes to playing chess, so would you think it was okay if a requirement for teams was that the players must have fingernail widths that varied by at least 1 mm? Of course not. That's stupid. Equally stupid is the gender requirements, in every possible way.

For my post #9, I understand it basically applies for any mixed doubles (e.g. a sport) where there are more male players doing it or more female players doing it. Still with chess in particular it's pretty blatant who has the better odds of winning more money when they walk into the tournament (a female will have an easier time finding a partner than a male).

Since these males might play just as well as those females, I would kind of feel bad for those males who, only because of their gender, miss out on some extra potential money. The rules of mixed doubles don't necessitate that, but when you know who plays chess, you know that's going to happen.

And that sounds a bit like the "If you don't like it here, go back to Africa" response to racism accusations. Yes, no one's "forced" to enter the tounrament - how does that justify blatant descrimination? Not sure what you're not seeing about this.

Look, I'm all for social equality, but these kinds of statements are silly.  Individual colors are different, but you can group them into light and dark, by wavelength, by contrast, by "warmth" etc.  People (and groups of people) have differences.  It's not bad to be realistic and acknowledge those differences, even if in the past these acknowledgements came with the implication of justifying social inequality.