London marathon accepts trans women as women

I know a lot of people who run marathons who absolutely care about their rankings.

Here's Glenique, urging people to donate to a charity fundraiser. So feminine!

I think it's quite normal to use political identifiers in that way. Nobody says Tory people. Communist people. Feminist people. I've never seen anyone on this board use "TRA" people. Surely TRAs is also dehumanising then?

2bazookas that's not my experience at all. All the club runners I know pore over their Power of 10 rankings. If you race on a regular basis you'll know a lot of the people who are a similar pace so even at big events there's an element of 'I want to beat Paula from Serpentine'.

That may be true in huge marathons where there’s elite runners so everyone else is running for time but it’s definitely not true in local races which is where runners do most of our competing. Telling women not to worry about placing and just run for personal fulfillment is sexist, especially since 90% of the women runners I know are mothers and have run through pregnancy and breastfeeding, get up at 4am to run before kids wake up, train while getting up with sick kids…do you have any idea how hard it is for women to put in 100km weeks while mothering? those women should have places taken from them and it’s ok because it’s not the Olympics?

Young girls drop out of sports as teens in huge amounts and talent is lost. Women are pushed out with eating disorders, abuse, burnout. Lots of women don’t even start sports until they’re older because of body shame, being discouraged, made fun of for being competitive, unmanaged periods. When an adult woman starts running she’s overcome so many negative social narratives about herself and her body, especially in running. Men don’t face these obstacles.

Because the NB category will be won by male athletes. This is a feminist board. We are fighting for the rights of all females, regardless of gender.

You obviously don’t quite understand the terms you are here using.

For a start, please do use ‘GCs’. You have just dehumanised us. We are (rightly) not allowed to use ‘transes’ or ‘the transes’ because to do so is dehumanising. They are trans people. We are on a feminist board, the term ‘gender critical’ may be used by some but was initially gender critical feminists. Now trans rights activists separate the ‘gender critical’ from the feminist aspect to create a false alignment with any one who believes sex cannot change. Which is a universally held belief, held by many people with many motivations. And many who are not critical of gender.

But that hasn’t stopped people inappropriately using it in its detached form.

Either way, ‘GCs’ like ‘transes’ is dehumanising.

Some people do. Some people don't. Many runners rank themselves.

Soon to become a "granny", I gather.

Two of my sons run marathons, have done for years. Most recently, Manchester; which had 28 ,000 runners.

Numbers like that have little interest in running faster than any one else; or who else is running. All they care about is their own time compared to their own time in previous marathons.

It's short for dick.

Exactly, there should be a category just for people with a cervix. They could call it the cervix Havers category.

@Whoknewwhat yes exactly! It pisses me off when people are happy to sacrifice our places, prizes and rankings because we aren't elite.

Glenique?

You haven’t grasped that feminism is a collective movement fighting for all women, have you?

It affects me directly as a runner and indirectly as a woman existing in society. When I qualified for the London marathon I had to achieve a certain time, the qualifying times for men are faster, there's also good for age qualification. Men running in the women's category is not only cheating but it distorts the rankings and ways to measure the female cohort. The NB category isn't the solution for trans runners as it just allows mediocre men to win. On average NBs with prostates will be beat NBs with cervix. It's almost as if sex matters...

You are not a female runner are you? I am. Runners care about this stuff. We look at our times compared to other women, and other women in our age category. It’s a fucking colossal insult to us to put us lower in our rankings because a male has been placed in our category. It’s a massive, loud speaker announcement screaming. ‘ fuck you women runners, you don’t count’ ! And we all hear it.

Personally I think a non binary category is a very good thing.

It will always be won by men, meaning that the women competing in it will start calling for separate categories for AMAB and AFAB non binary people, and the whole thing will just illustrate perfectly why we have separate categories for men and women based on biological (as opposed to imaginary) sex in the first place.

No not in terms of performance tracking.

many of us here are runners, and marathon runners, and it matters MASSIVELY to us. Every transwoman running as a woman bumps be back one place every time I run, and not only that, but completely screws up the averages and grades I am measuring myself against, to the point that I cannot measure myself against anything, and have nothing to compete against.

Why bother having the rankings separated by sex and age on their live feed?

No point.

A biological male could win 4 out the 5 categories, with the only protected category being elite women.

He stumbled on his words about becoming a grandf... grandmother.

Innit.

But too many people learn their politics from the USA.

If the "nonbinary" category is mixed sex/all sexes (rather than exclusively for nonbinary people), that's great. But if the male and female categories are ALSO open/opt-in, that makes three "third categories", with natal men likely to win in each (all other things being equal). It's generally understandable how this is unfair and disproportionately punitive to women, especially when you take into account the reasons separate categories for women were introduced in the first place and are still needed.

Every level of sport is important to the person doing it. From a utilitarian point of view, non elite sport is more important because more people take part in it.

This is just another male overstepping women's boundaries. Enabled by others who disregard boundaries. Like an old boys network.

Anyone who puts chicken fillets in to run the marathon can contribute to the £50 sports bras I need for me to be able to run without my breasts causing significant pain. Actually, not for me, they can buy proper sports bras for the thousands of teenage girls who back quietly out of sports participation when their bodies change and the embarrassment and discomfort becomes overwhelming.

No such thing as society, only individuals, eh, Maggie?