Women’s chess master claims she was raped at tournament
Sabrina Chevannes said discrimination has taken place at every chess tournament she has ever attended
A prominent women’s chess player has accused a fellow player of rape and sexual harassment as she warned a “toxic culture“ of misogyny and sexually predatory behaviour plagues the chess community.
Sabrina Chevannes, a women’s international chess master, said she was raped at a chess tournament by another contestant.
The 36-year-old, who quit professional chess in January 2017, told The Independent the incident happened when she was blackout drunk as a teenager.
She added: “I woke up in the linen room of the hotel on a table. I was in so much pain. I didn’t quite understand what had happened.
“While playing chess I was in so much pain I could barely sit down. Him and his friends were high-fiving about it.”
Ms Chevannes, who won 10 British chess titles, said sexual harassment, sexual assault or discrimination against women has taken place at every chess tournament she has ever attended.
She has endured racism from fellow chess players, with people often assuming she had cheated when she did well in tournaments, she added.
She also told of an incident at a chess tournament when a man who was a chess master groped her.
“I was 11 years old,” she recalled. “I wanted to have a picture with him because he was famous in this world. He posed for the picture but did this thing where he put his hand down my back touching my butt. Then he turned around and winked at me.”
Have you been affected by this story? Email maya.oppenheim@independent.co.uk
She encountered him again at another chess event when she was a teenager where he told her he had seen her on the front of a chess magazine, she added.
“He said, ‘You are developing so well’. I said, ‘I was at my best rating’, and he said, ‘No, I don’t mean developing like that’,” Ms Chevannes recalled.
“He said he may need another copy of the magazine as he said he had worn his down with all the night-time reading. He looked at me in a creepy, lecherous manner. When he met me when I was 18, he said ‘now you are legal in all countries’.”
The former player said she would actively avoid tournaments where he was playing. She noted he sexually propositioned her a few years ago – asking her to go back to his hotel room.
Ms Chevannes said: “He used very racist, misogynistic language to my face.”
She told of another incident where a different chess player offered to let her sleep in his hotel room as she was tired from her flight but couldn’t check into her room until mid-afternoon.
“He wasn’t in the room when I was sleeping but I woke up to find one hand down my pants and one hand in my bra,” she added. “He did the same thing again when I was in the same house as him and lots of others in the chess community.”
Ms Chevannes, who now coaches chess, said she did not report any of the incidents to the police at the time as others warned her she would not be believed.
But she added that social media posts she recently shared about her alleged experiences had been seen by the police who are now looking into her claims.
Other female chess players have come forward in recent weeks to make allegations of sexual assault, violence and harassment from male players.
Earlier in the month, 14 of France’s top female players wrote an open letter, “denouncing the sexist or sexual violence they have suffered” in the chess community, with over 100 women in chess signing the letter in the space of only five days.
Ms Chevannes described the chess community as an “insular world” with a rigid hierarchy where people are judged by their chess abilities and women are perpetually belittled.
“Women are seen as inferior, they genuinely believe men are superior to women in every way – including intellectually,” she added. “If you beat someone, it’s described as you raped them.”