parkrun defending their position

Butbutbut they didn't all win! For this to be remotely convincing, we need not a single individual girl ever to win over a trans-identifying boy (let alone more than one). Because as long as an exceptional girl/woman at peak fitness who has worked her socks off training can ever beat a mediocre boy/man...

...this is only further evidence that they doesn't deserve their own sporting category!

(Heads I win, tails you lose).

Or... not.

Just thought I'd get that out of the way before anyone else leaps in and embarrasses themselves.

(Sorry. Angry reading that.)

It's shameful.

I'm interested in hearing better arguments than mine above (which really is one of the favourites, for anyone unfamiliar with all this). I've not yet heard many, really.

“And yet every`single transwoman participant directly affects multiple women”

Yes. The calculations have been done. I saw one calculation that just 11 male people had negatively impacted the ranking of thousands of female people in parkrun.

I will look for that that. But in the meantime we have this from the states.

AN ANALYSIS ON HOW JUST A FEW MALE PEOPLE CAN CAUSE HARM TO MANY FEMALE ATHLETES - THE FALSITY OF 'JUST ONE'
@hecheateddotorg
18th March 2025

To analyze performance differences between "trans"-identified male and actual female participants in girls' sport, we need look no further than girls' high school track and field.
Track and field provides the clearest data as it is an individual sport and has had the highest number of recorded male participants to date at the high school level.

There are a total of 37 male athletes on record who have participated in girls' high school track and field in the United States.
Of these 37, one athlete participated in only one race due to the cancellation of the season during the COVID 19 pandemic. Another athlete participated in a tech/private school league that did not participate in a state championship. These two athletes will be excluded from the data.

Out of 1,276 completed events, male athletes finished as follows:
1st place: 440 (34%)
2nd place: 188 (15%)
3rd place: 123 (10%)
Other: 485 (41%)

Male athletes came in 1st 34% of the time, only 7% less often than they did than any other place outside the top 3.

They finished in the top three in 59% of their events and outside the top eight in only 19% of their events.

24 of the 35 male athletes (68%) qualified for their respective State Championship meet in a total of 136 events.

When looking at athletes competing against same-sex peers, depending on the state and division of competition, anywhere from 5 to 15% of athletes are expected to qualify.

For example in states that use regional-sectional qualification, the top 4 finishers at a regional meet (often with 2 heats of 8 runners each) qualify for the sectional meet where the top 4 finishers at the sectional then advance to State. This means that out of 32 runners at regionals, only 4 (12.5%) will advance to State.

This number also does not take into account the fact that only the best runners on a team will be entered in a regional meet and often the same runner will qualify in multiple events. A runner may also have a higher chance of qualifying in a relay as 8 runners (top 2 teams) advance to state rather than 4 in this type of qualification.

In other types of qualification or less competitive, smaller regions, it may be easier to qualify.

At the State Championship meet, there are typically 24 entries in each event. 1 of the 24 will win, meaning 4% of the 15% of athletes who have qualified for state will be a state champion, or 0.6%.
Of the 24 male athletes who qualified for state against girls, 11 of them (46%) have won a state championship title, or 31% of the total.

4 of the 35 male athletes (11%) have also achieved a top 10 national ranking.

The percentage of male athletes who have been in the top 10 of all track and field athletes in the female division in the entire nation is higher than the percentage of female athletes who have won a state title.

To find the percentage of female athletes who are in the top 10, we can take the 57 indoor and outdoor events ranked on milesplit. com multiplied by 10 (10 athletes in each) then divide by the total number of female athletes in high school track and field - 506,015 (according to nfhs. org).
This number does not take into account the fact that many athletes in the top 10 appear there in multiple events and several of the 57 events are less commonly run. (All 4 male athletes in the top 10 achieved that placement in a main event).

This means less than 0.11 percent of female athletes achieve a top 10 ranking.

"But not all states require hormone therapy!"
It is true that some states do not require males to undergo any sort of testosterone suppression or medical intervention in order to compete against girls.
We can therefore, look to the athletes who have reportedly begun "identifying" as the opposite sex and undergone "medical interventions" prior to puberty or in early middle school as it has been proposed that males who do so are in line with "average female performance."

There are 3 athletes who have reportedly "transitioned" prior to puberty. Based on their feminized appearances and high voices, we can infer this included puberty blockers.

All 3 athletes qualified for the state championship meet, 2 of the athletes were conference champions, and one athletes was not only a state champion and New England champion, but he was ranked in the national top 10.
None of these performances are in line with an "average" athlete. In fact, the national ranking out of three athletes is statistically unlikely to the point of being impossible without an athletic advantage.
"But you just know about the athletes who are good. There could be more you don't hear about because they don't win anything."

When we look at the expected percentages, we can see that about 6 out of 1,000 athletes win state and 1 out of 1,000 are in the top 10 national ranking.

In order to see the 24 males as state champions and 4 males in the top 10, there should be around 4,000 males who have competed in the girls' division in track and field. (3,965 additional athletes, none of whom can have won a state title).
There have been 37 on record.
Numerous state senators and legislators have come forward testifying to the number of "trans"-identifying males participating in their states.

When these legislators testify that there have "only been 2" in the state, or in the case of Ohio, 17 athletes in 8 years, and these numbers include all sports, and when male athletes have been banned from participating in girls' sports in about half of the states in the nation, it is not likely that there are an additional 3,963 male athletes that not only does nobody know about, but who also have not won a single state title.

In regards to the prepubescent "transitioners," there should be an additional 1,000 of them who have not won a state title or achieved a top 10 ranking. This is also highly unlikely, as we've seen multiple prepubescent "transitioners" in other sports also winning national and state championship titles.
Male participation in the female division is not just unfair, it is blatantly so.

These percentages do not reflect the cost to the female athletes behind them. Just 2 male athletes in cross country and track and field in Maine have negatively impacted over 2,000 female athletes.

If each male athlete negatively impacted 500 female on average, that means over 18,500 female high school track and field athletes in the United States have been forced to compete against and have been negatively impacted by these boys.
This includes loss of titles, loss of medals, loss of relay spots, loss of entries in large meets, loss of qualifications for championships, loss of records, loss of privacy, and loss of confidence.

*2 male athletes in Maine negatively impacted over 1,600 girls

3 boys in Washington, over 2,000

parkrun has done more for public health than pretty much anything, giving ordinary people a supportive pathway into exercise. It survives off deep pools of voluntary effort from ordinary people.

Agree. It's upsetting so many women and girls are being put off exercising through it due to this, given the well-documented issues in their access to and enjoyment of sports.

Nobody should be denied the pleasure of sport and exercise.

Well, quite.

The number of trans people taking part is vanishingly small.

Exactly! And yet every`single transwoman participant directly affects multiple women, a proportion of whom, public concern about this indicates, are liable to be distressed by this. And every single transwoman's record set (and there are quite a lot already) affects dozens to hundreds of women (as it means these women don't have access to the same quality of, and unambiguity in, data as the men, and/or are excluded from even the hope of winning / placing in the top 5/10/whatever). And again, a number of these women, plural, public concern about this indicates, are liable to be distressed by this. The numbers involved do suggest that, from a utilitarian perspective, it would be more logical and fair to ask the vanishingly small group affected - transwomen - to race in an open category, as opposed to impacting on such a significantly larger group.

This approach would also mean women retain access to sex-based data, and transwomen can still measure themselves in relation to this. The other way round, transwomen still keep the data they want, while women wanting a sex-based category lose everything. Again, numbers-based logic suggests that one of these approaches is infinitely fairer than the other.

The problems of policing any gender declaration would fall to volunteers. It is deeply problematic.

This has been exhaustively addressed upthread, including: 1) it seems to be predicated on an expectation that transwomen won't adhere to this rule?!, 2) it also seems to make the unusual assumption that all transgressors must be identified, which has never been a basis for law-making - look at speeding / rape convictions, after all, 3) it would be fairly easy to put mechanisms in place for volunteers to pass concerns upwards in any case - see earlier posts for various suggestions. There are multiple other good points made.

The anti parkrun sentiment is part fuelled by ADF, a massively wealthy right wing Christian pressure group. Also in bed with Reform. They are also anti abortion.

This is a strange one. I'm not sure what's meant by "anti-Parkrun sentiment", which doesn't really seem to describe a thread of women largely arguing they should have access to the same opportunities and data as males. But if you do mean these women's concerns, it's still rather hard to see the relevance of this. To state the obvious, different groups believe different things for different reasons!

Given that you do see this as relevant regardless, all I can think is, are you suggesting that the views outlined over the last 27 pages are

1) Conservative themselves? (I mean, the focus is on women deserving the exact same resources as men and ways to support trans inclusion!) or

2. somehow invalidated by these nefarious rightwing groups happening to want something similar in a limited respect (which would be illogical), or

3. necessarily influenced by these groups?!? (a very dangerous way of thinking about women voicing concerns about their sex-based rights, akin to, "Silly girls, can't think for themselves" kinda thing). I don't understand this point.

Let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water.

Totally agree. This argument, of course, assumes that the emptying of the bath is happening only now, in women's challenge to the loss of an exclusively sex-based category - and not when the original executive decision to promote so-called trans-inclusion under the guise of "female-only" was made under the radar (and reasserted despite early opposition). This is, itself, a form of bias.

I explain it in another post like this, in response to someone saying that women arguing for their sex-based category should realise that Parkrun isn't the place for political ideology. I couldn't believe the irony of that! Part of how I responded follows:

I made a post a looong time ago about in ParkRunthreadtime 😅 about how one thing that quite disturbs me is how, where trans "inclusion" is concerned, those people standing up for what is, fundamentally, a fairly controversial value system - an ideology, you could say - often don't even seem to recognise (or aren't prepared to acknowledge?) that this is what it is.

I added here that I have a value system (or, to use PP's provocative term, an "ideology, in advocating for single-sex, just as they do, too, in advocating for what they want).

Arguing your position in this thread without even realising that "trans inclusion" of the kind we're discussion isn't automatically, by definition or default, neutral / ethical / a blank slate etc... Well, I'd say it I'd say exposes the weakness of that position. It assumes the "natural" invalidity of opposing arguments (they're political, an ideology, biased etc.) without 1) recognising that so are your own! and 2) engaging with the strengths and weaknesses of these two sides.

I'd argue that dissolving only one of two sex-based categories (the men's isn't affected in the same way, or even at all) without consulting runners or even publicly acknowledging that this was happening, was actually the point when baby went whizzing decisively down the plughole. After all, it was hugely undemocratic, and the amount of articles written and threads produced in response, shows the impact it had.

You may disagree with this yourself, but it 's really about time that it's recognised that this is a valid argument, too.

"The anti parkrun sentiment is part fuelled by ADF, a massively wealthy right wing Christian pressure group. Also in bed with Reform. They are also anti abortion."

No. This is actually a misrepresentation.

It is female athletes who are fighting to have their category protected. It has become akin to victim blaming to continue to frame women and girls campaigning and having to go through court cases to get their single sex provisions to again exclude male people, as being 'fuelled' by the 'right wing, Christian, Reform and anti-abortion' lobby.

Wouldn't it have been wonderful if those left wing groups had actually started to properly support the left wing and socialist lesbians who started raising the alarms about this over a decade ago?

Wouldn't if be wonderful if left wing groups supported female collective needs rather than prioritised the individualism that is foundational to male people who demand to be treated as if they are female because of their personal, subjective belief? It could be said that for this issue those people on the left pointing and saying 'but look at the right wing groups supporting those women and girls' got their priorities completely arse about face.

Since when was individual demands prioritised over a group's collective needs?

"Trans inclusion remains problematic, but let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water."

Sure. But actually getting parkrun to start with changing the policy to protect the female category would be start. Instead, there is this false narrative pushed that it is problematic for female people to fight in court to protect their sports categories because of the ADF. Fuck. Imagine if the left actually supported the women who raised the alarm in the first place instead of demonising and vilifying them.

I hesitate to come on here but offer a couple of thoughts that likely won’t change anyone’s mind.

parkrun has done more for public health than pretty much anything, giving ordinary people a supportive pathway into exercise. It survives off deep pools of voluntary effort from ordinary people.

Nobody should be denied the pleasure of sport and exercise.

The number of trans people taking part is vanishingly small.

The problems of policing any gender declaration would fall to volunteers. It is deeply problematic.

I’ve spoken to Lauren Jeska at races, and the people they were beating. A friend of mine was working at UKA at the time of the attack so not entirely removed from the debate. They are very much an outlier.

The anti parkrun sentiment is part fuelled by ADF, a massively wealthy right wing Christian pressure group. Also in bed with Reform. They are also anti abortion.

Trans inclusion remains problematic, but let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water.

https://www.reddit.com/r/transgenderUK/comments/1t0t604/trans_girl_says_were_all_biological_males/

read that and tell me again they don’t believe they change sex.

I think some people don’t feel safe to be ‘out’ as trans and their name is published.

Then they need different policies in different countries. I don’t see why that so hard.

The issue in this case is that parkrun has to comply with several sets of laws across the world and it isn't always easy to find a solution that works in every territory.

Parkrun doesn't exist in France any more because they cannot satisfy the authorities' requirement for insurance. If Parkrun want to operate in the UK they have to comply with UK law.

Also - there's no elite sport without grassroots sport.

What is it about MN that people always say this? They say it about businesses too - oh it's their business they can do what they like.

NO, they can't. They have to comply with the law.

The issue in this case is that parkrun has to comply with several sets of laws across the world and it isn't always easy to find a solution that works in every territory.

Sorry for being pedantic, but no. Some years are slower, some are faster. You just have to come in the top 6.
But this isnt really about the specifics of particular runners. It's about girls as a class being given the same respect as boys as a class.

Except they are discriminating against women so no, they can’t do what they like, they have to comply with the law.

Thanks for this. It makes so much sense! I knew there was a big difference that's not only about the numbers (which frankly aren't insignificant - transwomen are clearly reshaping aspects of women's sport on a global scale, whereas this is as yet hypothetical) - but couldn't quite process it last night. This is it. And it's everything.

137 parkruns, 27 volunteers. I think I attend quite regularly seeing as I usually do hill running / xc / road racing. I care passionately. Why on earth should men be allowed to cheat women out of their achievements? And yes the end of the field that I run at treats parkrun as very competitive indeed.

I’ve done 370 parkruns (and volunteered on 80 separate occasions including run directing) and I care.

@WeMeetInFairIthilien Well done on an incredible achievement and making a change that meant so much to you and benefited your life in valuable ways. I'm so sorry to hear your experience, I absolutely do not blame you for stepping away from that.

What really gets me is that if they had the will, and a little imagination, I'm sure there are things Parkrun could do to keep EVERYONE happy (except men who specifically want unfair advantage over women, who shouldn't be!).

My suggestion would be: create a proper "sex" category, options: M, F, and either a PNTS option with its own stats, and/or an option to opt out altogether (but then not be included in any sex data). Runners would be expected to put their correct sex (so virtually all presumably would), & it wouldn't be "policed" on the day, but if women noticed an obvious man had got the female record/first finish or even just kept beating them to 6th place in the "Female 60-64" group, it could be reported to HQ, who could ask him to verify his sex and either change his registration or be banned if he refused.

Then, for anyone who feels it important to be allowed to run as their "gender", have an ADDITIONAL, optional "gender ID" category, with some sort of gender options (masculine/feminine??, & possibly others), & for non-believers, either a "none" option or just don't enter anything.

Then you use the "sex" data to send to the running orgs and for age/sex categories, age grades, M/Fvrecords etc, cos sex is the relevant factor for those, and that way, women & girls get fair data and opportunities.
Anyone who chooses not to state their sex misses out on those (or for PNTS you could possibly give some stats, but not all the above), BUT they could add options so those people can instead view the same data by "age/gender ID" category (& even have additional "gender" records if enough demand), again excluding those who opted out (or showing "none" as a separate category). So they can still compare themselves to people of the same age and gender identity, as THEY wished, but those who don't have one would not be included, and nobody would be assumed to have a/any particular GI. (Unlike now - a PP made a good point about runners who signed up before the rule change then being assumed to have a GI that "matches" the sex they'd previously entered, & not being given the option to say otherwise without losing access to the "female" stats altogether! And later sign-ups still faced the same bad choice - pretend you have a "gender ID", or lose the closest thing we HAVE to sex data currently!).

I can't see any real reason why BOTH groups shouldn't be happy with that solution? Only men actively wanting to exploit their male advantage against women might be rather miffed, but the ones Parkrun says it's worried about, who "just want to run as what they identify as", would be able to do that without being unfair to women. Some might wonder, of course, whether the "gender identity" categories might be a bit thinly populated if they were optional and clearly differentiated from "sex", but trans activists tell us that EVERYONE has a "gender identity", so I'm sure the numbers will bear that out - won't they?

That means a lot to me to hear, too - especially as I started to realise that since my "Orwell moment" earlier in the thread, I've got a bit carried away! I just care so very, very deeply - and am desperate to see more reasoned argument. In one sense, it's a way of testing my own thinking. It's striking how often the responses are like those above your posts, and that does reassure me that I'm not missing too much (watch this space - I'll keep questioning 😅). Millie seriously made me think (such a good point about transmen - and honestly a bit scary and something to learn from, that I'd pretty much discounted this as a possibility - it really shows you have to keep questioning). But I was struck by how excited (sad but true!) I was to read posts that really delved into the nitty-gritty of this from "the (kind of, ish) other side". Still mulling it over now...

And yes. That's exactly it: why do you matter less? Your post alone would be enough to convince me that this needs open democratic debate at the least - and that there's something very wrong indeed that other posters are denying so much as the need for this.

But it's not your post alone. There are so, so many women hurting - really, really hurting - because of this, whether because of deeply upsetting concrete impacts like yourself, or just one hell of a shock to their world view and sense of security, like you, again, I imagine, and definitely me.

May we live in interesting times, right? It doesn't get more "interesting" than this stuff!

Thank you Catiette that means a lot. You are one of the posters that I love to read, you have a nuanced take and are happy to discuss.

I've never really linked my running and sex realist beliefs before, but it's so sodding obvious when I think about it.

DH is not a runner, but over 100m he absolutely trounces me.

Running has made me respect all that my body can do. And all it's limitations.

And the question still stands. I've dragged myself up out of the depths of self-neglect. Why do I matter less than a man?