Why is the parkrun decision wrong?

No they aren’t a necessity. We have survived without them before and you are making an excuse to avoid answering the question.

Why do you believe that women should put up with inferior treatment compared to men?

Yes. Ani. If someone is in a 'fun run' and wants to set themselves a challenge, it is on them. I agree and suggested to falafel that if that is what they wanted to do now that it is just a 'fun run' that they should organise that themselves. Either they can get someone to help if it is difficult to do/no equipment or do it themselves.

Measuring time, even for yourself, is a type of competitiveness. I compete against my own times all the time to assess how my fitness is improving. It is a type of gamifying. But Parkrun declaring it is just for fun and then releasing times, rankings etc is just them being dishonest.

Helleofabore I think you can run for fun, but want to beat your own time, to see if your own level of fitness is improving.
However if a person wishes to set themselves a challenge and keep track of their record that's on them.
Falafel It's completely pointless having a male and female division if males are running in the female section. It doesn't matter how someone identifies biology can't change . One can wear a dress and run in kitten heels, or wear a tuxedo and cowboy boots, but biology remains XY or XX (rarely XXY and even more rarely XYY) no amount of wishing, wanting or taking hormones can change that biological fact.

Okay PR is for fun but why would it be okay for a biological male to run in a female category for PR but not for other competitions, particularly when money starts being involved? So in cycling you have male and female competitions, at what point do we say biological males can compete in female categories Because once money is involved surely it then becomes open to deception? What happens if you have four, five six biological males competing all claiming to identify as female, because they all want a chance to win the money? And more importantly where does that leave women's sport? I mean we know this is already happening we just need a lot more men competing in female sport, because if that happened it would at least even up the playing field for the men, and I suspect a fair few mediocre men would stop competing, because their advantage would be taken away.
Maybe women just shouldn't compete at all, or even do sport at all?

Then we can have lots of fat, flabby, unfit women, who can't conceive and risk dying young due to unfit lifestyles... I mean it's a bit like going back to the nineteenth century and not educating girls after the age of 12 as it was considered bad for their ovaries.

Here you go. Here are those questions again.

Can you clarify please, do you falafels believe that male people should be able to compete in a female sports category when the female sports category has been set up to give female athletes fairness and safety?

Or do you believe that a male athlete taking testosterone suppression drugs reverse all the advantages that puberty has given them?

I mean, you had the ridiculousness to say this...

"Which probably explains why you're being hypocritical over complaining that not all your questions are being immediately answered and then glossing over ignoring ? ones asked to you."

I did give you quite a long time to answer, yet you made this performative outraged post when it took me 24 minutes to post my answer to yours.

I think we all can see that you are reluctant to own your opinions. Either you fully believe that males who have gone through male puberty have their physical advantages negated with transition and so provide 'fair' competition OR you believe that female athletes should have access to a protected sports category based on sex (without the effect of performance enhancing drug) meaning no male people at all. There is no other position that I can see here.

So, which is it? time to own your position.

But that is not what most runners want. Do you not care what most runners want

Have you not read the petiton?

Then why are they sending place by sex? When it's actually not by sex.

Perhaps this will attract people who want the fun element that PR promise (but don’t deliver)? I went a few times to our local one as a complete non runner and was surprised to see how competitive it was, with the front hundred or so made up of local running clubs - very few walking, and then the times published which added to the horror. Even worse, the course doubled back on itself so as I was coming up to the halfway mark as a sweaty out of breath plodder the running clubs and fastest runners were watching us from the finish line. Mortified.

You could not collect a bar code at the end, or just delete the email, or just run and time yourself on the same route on your own every week.

Just because you don’t want an official time or placing it doesn’t mean nobody else does.

Thing is, people wanting times and being competitive doesn't actually stop other from just enjoying a run and a blether and some companionship on a Saturday morning. Trying to be "inclusive" by taking away stats and times and all that actually just spoils the experience for a chunk of people.

"Time it yourself/wear a watch" I'll let my FW85-89 friend she needs to go out and buy herself some tech. How about the JW/JM10s? Should they time themselves too? Have you ever, ever pushed yourself hard in a run? When I cross a 5K finish line I'm trying not to throw up, not thinking about pressing a button. "Go do a proper race then"... well that's the thing, people would. Clubs will reintroduce more 5Ks again and people will stop going to parkrun in droves and then the event will fizzle out to nothing. Parkrun know this, which is why they will still keep timing. The "it's a fun run, times don't matter" is a complete sop to cover up the fact they are too scared to say no to cheating males.

So you are competitive. Against yourself. So not just a ‘fun run’ then.

How inclusive.

ANY solution that does not involve stating that women deserve their own category and some respect will suffice.

I like to know my time to compare myself to how I did the week before - trying to beat my personal best time.

That is your own issue to find a solution to then. Isn’t it?

Why do you want to know your time? It is just for fun and not to be taken seriously.

Therefore, you demanding to know your time is hypocritical.

Perhaps they could wear a watch?

Suppose, would rather it was recorded and sent to me though rather than relying on myself to look at my watch and set a timer as knowing me I'd forget 😬

oh. Hang on …

Are you just going to avoid answering the questions after you so hypocritically insisted I was dodging yours while missing the fact that I asked you questions directly first hours before?

Gosh… please do keep posting as it is really entertaining knowing everyone on the thread is watching your answer avoidance.

Is it because you don’t want us to know what your answer to those questions are? Because it would show that either you believe and understand that male people have physical advantages over female people, and transition doesn’t remove those? Or because it will show that you don’t care at all about female fairness and safety in sport?

Either way, I would suggest your calling me a hypocrite is clearly projection and laughable for anyone who is familiar with your posts.

People can want to see how long it took them to complete the course without feeling the need to compare themselves to others.

Perhaps they could wear a watch?

I'm not saying the trans woman is more important that other women just that the positive for her is greater than the negative for others.

How are you measuring that? Why do you get to determine how great the negative is for the women runners? The transwoman gets to participate in the runs anyway, alongside women as well as men. So what is the benefit to the transwoman of having their stats recorded (albeit privately now) as a woman? Oh... only that they will look better because they are being ranked against runners without male physical advantages!

Is helping a man have a happy penis more important than women's inner lives and sport ambitions?

The fact that you even ask

...shows such innocence. Of course men's happy penises are the ultimate goal of everything.

People can run without knowing the time

After all its a "fun run", why does it matter how long it takes?

It is time, I think, for Parkrun to declare they will not collect any times or record any records and see just how many people stay
What would that achieve?
People can want to see how long it took them to complete the course without feeling the need to compare themselves to others.

If there are stats available they should be fair.
If the stats don't matter do not send emails to me stating my position within my sex because this is inaccurate information.

I agree Mysterious. If it is a pure 'fun run' based only on people running for the fun of it... Parkrun should stick to their announcement.

The truth is, runners fucking care about these things despite some runner eloquently declaring it doesn't matter to them and shouldn't matter to others. Running is a SPORT. The psychology of sport applies to these 'fun runs' just as it does where results are considered important.

It is time, I think, for Parkrun to declare they will not collect any times or record any records and see just how many people stay. They really need to put their 'funding' where their mouth led them last week. But, I don't think that they will. I suspect they realise those saying, it is just for 'fun' are a minority. I know my running buddies who are still there are not there 'just for the shits and giggles'.

I would also encourage the starry eyed maternal types, who are sentimentally envisaging the beauty and the beast type gift of a happy glow to a poor vulnerable male bravely struggling through life, to read Hayton's book as the account of a male with a TQ identity. Some of these men are not brave, sad little soldiers who need mummying. Some of them - many of them- are just plain getting off on the situation, and as Hayton is, are quite open about this.

Is helping a man have a happy penis more important than women's inner lives and sport ambitions?

Quite.

In essence: the happiness a man will feel is more important than the unhappiness of any number of women.

Fgs do people like this look their little girls in the face and tell them their birthright is of service to penises? And they and their feelings and ambitions and inner lives mean nothing, they must live selflessly and seek only the reward of a man being happy?

Are we living in the pages of a 1950s magazine or something?

None of this is fair to women and girls.