On 15 February 2023, Jennifer Shahade took a deep breath and wrote “Time’s up” above a long message about allegations of sexual abuse in the cloistered world of professional chess. Shahade knew her words would have an impact but she didn’t expect the social media post to go viral and change her life.
A two-time US women’s chess champion, Shahade chose her words carefully as she made serious allegations against Alejandro Ramirez, a then 34-year-old grandmaster from Costa Rica who was based in America and coached the St Louis University chess team: “Currently there are multiple investigations [into] Alejandro Ramirez and sexual misconduct, including a series of alleged incidents involving a minor. I was assaulted by him twice, nine and 10 years ago. I’d moved on until the past couple of years when multiple women, independent of each other, and with no knowledge of my own experience, approached me with their own stories of alleged abuse. These accounts were from much younger alleged victims.”
