Parkrun to remove course records

😬The Telegraph

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/2024/02/09/parkrun-event-director-quits-removing-records-transgender/

https://archive.ph/Pwwy5 link with no paywall

They are annoyed... not only because the stats have been taken away but also because it was the bloody women fault tehy wouldn't just shut up and let men take their records. It is even more depressing... they still don't see that we matter.

I'm having a good old laugh over on Twitter. Every time an indignant male park runner complains a GC pitches up and asks them why they didn't object before?

Some men are getting doubly angry because not only have they had their stats taken away despite telling women that stats don't matter ad nauseum for so long... now, also, some of those inferior woman-humans are laughing at them. 😭

Some of those tweets from men are incredibly revealing.

I think Parkrun's decision is probably a good thing in terms of getting to the crux of the issue.

Initially, the two main arguments available to them in saying that males are female were (1) sex doesn't matter in running and (2) competition doesn't matter.

If they had gone with the first option and deleted their 'gender' categories, only women would have been disadvantaged and men wouldn't have cared as their times wouldn't have been affected. (Obviously, this option would have been a harder sell anyway, given the general direction professional sport is moving in).

But by doubling down on their argument that competition and stats don't matter at all (and essentially implying that grassroots and amateur sport doesn't matter) they have managed to shit on everyone equally and undermine much of the appeal of Parkrun for many of its supporters.

If they end up reinstating the competitive element, they will have to concede that it's unfair to women to not have their own category based on biology, since it can't be the case that only men should get the competitive element back but not women.

A chance for girls to shine and gain confidence from seeing 'first woman

Exactly, and as I said above, they might decide they like running/athletics and get into it in a big way and be the next Eilish McColgan.

In fact my son did. I started running, did parkrun, took him with me, he joined an athletics club and competed for England.

But I've always thought of parkrun as a particularly safe space for women to exercise without heckling.

Katie Montgomery has a fairly predictable take on the news of the removal of the records (in response to FPW's tweet above). The DARVO continues to flow strongly through this one.

And you destroyed them because you hate trans people so much you'd hurt every woman on earth to cause a single trans person suffering if you had to

https://x.com/KatyMontgomerie/status/1755903670879707256?s=20

Maybe if wider society is inconvenienced (as opposed to just women), the downsides of telling TRAs to fill their boots may be considered, rather than just ignored. What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

It was always going to be one of three groups that had to suck it up with this, the trans "community", women or people that enjoy parkrun as a race and like stats and records. Obviously women had their turn first because that's the default choics when calling upon one group to suck it up. Now it seems to be time for everyone who dares to enjoy a bit of friendly competition to have their turn. They'll never ask the sacred trans to suck up a tiny bit of a reality check for the sake of everyone else though.

Yes and it adds to the ambient sense that, "We all say we recognise them as equals but, come on lads, we all know women are bit-playing support humans".

https://x.com/fairplaywomen/status/1755662569300230602?s=20

Ugh, it's attitudes like that that would put me off parkrun, not running alongside people who are trans.

Setting aside the rest of your comment (I agree that pointing out mannish-looking women is unhelpful), I think you misunderstand the main objection if you think it's about women not wanting to run alongside trans people.

As a woman, I have zero issue running alongside trans people, men, children, buggies, etc.

My issue is that I can't compare my data to others of my sex and age range to see how I'm performing relative to key biological factors relevant to the activity. I don't care who else runs, but if Parkrun is going to collect and publish data based on various biological categories, it's only useful if it's accurate.

It's so disheartening for women who are trying really hard to see themselves slipping further and further below average as more biological males join their category and push the average out of their reach.

People aren't objecting to "running alongside people who are trans" - they are specifically objecting to those people taking the course records for females. It's fine for someone trans to turn up and run. Just record their results in the correct sex category, and job's done. But when females are pushed out of their records and wins by males, it's unfair and ParkRun could have made it clear that this is not what the records are based on. It usually is obvious when a male is running in a female race - it's not about looking feminine or conforming to stereotypes, but purely physical characteristics that give it away. An actual female can dress/present in as unfeminine a way as she wants, and it's not an issue. However ,I don't think it's practical for ParkRun to investigate those cases, true - but they could make it clear that the records are based on sex categories and that anything else is cheating, instead of choosing to let people decide what category they want to be in , which implicitly affirms the idea that it's fine and records can be based on self-identified gender.

I feel sad about this. It's the fact that 'it's not a race' but still had times and leader boards that made it so perfect - so truly diverse. A chance for girls to shine and gain confidence from seeing 'first woman'. For children like my ND DD it's the only time she's ever come top at anything, and had her 'name in lights' because she can't cope with 'normal' athletics and the pressure.
I guess it's free and run by volunteers, so perhaps I'm being selfish. But genuinely I just feel a bit heartbroken.

I take your point Liese and it is important to encourage exercise. However, I think women are just sick of being told to suck it up for greater good and their rights and concerns always being sent to the back of the line while something considered (by men) to be more important takes precedence. Time to have our voices heard for once.

I went to look at this - all the usual stuff about do a race if you want to "win" etc.

I am glad that someone posted about it being a time trial. I get really fed up with people telling those of us who've done parkrun for years (over a decade in my case) to suck eggs.

parkrun has morphed over the years to a community event to unlock funding. But it was originally a time trial, that is its core and it wasn't a race because of UKA insurance issues.

I think there are more parkrunners that love stats than they realise. It is potentially the hook that gets people coming back - improving pbs, working towards attendance t shirts, alphabet challenges etc. You won’t immediately know the community as a newbie.

Maybe a good proportion of people come for the stats, stay for the community. I could be wrong and just talking about myself but I know I wouldn’t run if it wasn’t for parkrun and I wouldn’t have formed my parkrun habit without the numbers.

Yes the events won’t change and our personal stats will still be available and all the 5k app challenges will still be there so there are still numbers and stats to enjoy but it is interesting to look at the bigger picture nationally and locally. Where do I appear on the age grade list for my parkrun? can I go up a few places? what are the records for the different courses? How many different parkruns is the most an individual has done? Which parkrun has doubled their attendance record because it was event number 777 or they were the only one open on Christmas Day?

This information is now harder to access and that is less fun for those of us that are interested and also makes the organisation more opaque.

In terms of throwing blame around I think it is a three way thing. Trans activists for insisting that TWAW applies to sports too and that probably makes individual trans women afraid to choose the prefer not to say option for fear of attracting the wrath of their community. The Gender Critical feminists campaign. Yes I get it but I feel in this case the priority is that everyone feels welcome and that is what parkrun have put first. Parkrun HQ - They are between a rock and a hard place to be fair to them but I think they should change the categories to by sex or perhaps female and open - no they couldn’t police it but at least they would be indicating the intention behind the categories. I realise I have contradicted myself - It is not a simple situation and I have sympathy with all three sides of it.

I went to troll them a bit. Maybe the competitive young men will complain.

Daily Mail's take on the story of the records' removal.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13061567/Parkrun-removes-gender-course-age-records-website-row-trans-women.html

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/feb/08/parkrun-records-dropped-from-website

The Guardian and Parkrun claiming records have been dropped from the website to avoid putting off new entrants?

Spoiler alert: on Reddit it's overwhelmingly the latter.

What a mess. I don’t think we should be putting anything extra on volunteers who are giving up their time and I certainly don’t ever want them to be in a position where they have to police this stuff (a friend got stabbed playing amateur Saturday morning football once after a minor dispute).

As someone said up thread, if world boxing and world rugby aren’t putting a lid on this I don’t see why pr should.

Surely if they really believed twaw theyd have left all the records up?

Personally I'm for it I think strava has ruined the love of running

That'll be harder for RDs too - at our juniors they look at who is approaching milestones and make sure they have the bands etc