Reality Rules Parkrun Launch 3 October 2026

Stop using the silly word "inclusive" because we all know that means excluding women and benefitting men.

You are not being fair nor kind.

If you know nothing about parkrun (an apolitical...)

Of course Parkrun is not 'apolitical', is it? It's chosen, intentionally, a political position that favours men with gender identities over the entire female half of the population based on political ideology.

As with 'inclusive', I don't think that word means what you think it means.

As for the ranting about 'if you want actual fairness and equality and inclusion for women you have to set up your own organisation......

that is what this entire thread is about.

Ffs.

How - just because I think inclusivity is more important in this case than competition. But as I say I understand and also agree with the other side of this.

So - No one wants more protests at parkrun. The volunteers would have to deal with this. You know how transactivists behave at protests.

I also know that this doesn’t mean the most aggressive side should ‘win’.

Personally I think the inclusion of trans people trumps the fairness with results.

Trans people are already included, they just need to register with their biological sex and stop demanding that their feelz trump everyone else's rights to fairness.

Personally I think the inclusion of trans people trumps the fairness with results

How?

If you prioritise one group over another (and in this case it’s very specifically men - women who identify as trans have to make the choice between not being competitive - which is in itself outing - and competing in their sex), you aren’t being fair, but you aren’t being inclusive either.

but I think making this change would also lead to protests.

So?

It used to be all fun and games until men decided to put their big hairy feet on women's rights. Of course it's competitive, men usually are. Women are less so, but that doesn't mean they should be brushed under the carpet to make way for men. If you give on this, then you might as well give up on all women's rights. The line keeps getting eroded further and further back until there's nothing left.

I hope there's a large turn out!

Some of the employees at parkrun HQ earn 6 figure salaries.

It is a force for good on the whole and relies on volunteers on so many levels. I don’t think anyone is asking volunteers to police anything and of course this wouldn’t work anyway.

Personally I think the inclusion of trans people trumps the fairness with results. I get the arguments the other way though and wish that trans people would change their minds about this and all register in their birth gender, prefer not to say or another gender identity. But that isn’t going to happen any time soon. It would make a lot more sense if the registration was by sex with a prefer not to say option but I think making this change would also lead to protests. Plenty of the volunteers feel very strongly about this (on both side of the fence). There is the argument that it would be outing - the results are public and if you don’t declare a gender there is no age grade listed.

The planned protest is quite nuanced. The want people to join their running group within the parkrun data. People can join up to 5 groups and the primary group is listed on the results next to your name. If you know where to look you can find all the people in your group who ran or walked in a particular week. I think they are hoping to be one of the largest groups. Even if they achieve this it will not be that obvious - I guess they will need to put out more press releases to publicise it. Here is an example of the sort of thing they might generate: The Stragglers consolidated club report

I mean technically there’s no real way to police:
i) men using women’s toilets
ii) men pretending to be women in other settings
the list goes on

Doesn’t make it right though does it??? There are laws that ought to protect us to some degree

Exactly

And yet people are expected to be honest about their age. All that is being asked is that there is a category for female runners and the same level of honesty is expected when declaring eligibility.

It's interesting how much this excuse is trotted out to basically let off entitled men who are being entitled men ie oh well we can't stop them so we just have to let them have what they want all the time.

There is no way to police loads of things in society, we (used to) have a social contract where we trust for example able bodied ppl not to turn up and take all the parking spaces for ppl with disabilities or young ppl not to invade social groups for older people. There would be no way to stop them doing that either but somehow ppl don't queue up to hand wave and say "oh but it's sooooo hard so we just have to let them do what they want".

its only men larping as women who get a pass and indeed encouragement. Park run do absolutely zero to discourage men not to register their times as females, all their messaging is very much "hey men! Do what you like! Don't worry about the women, we can barely hear them anyway"

I agree, if

“parkrun is just for fun, the only race is against yourself.”

Then why do they need to run with hundreds of others if it's only about themselves. It's dismissive and selfish but then the whole 'only race is against yourself 'meme is also selfish.

If Parkrun has a category for women then they need to only put the times submitted by women into it. All this talk about it can't be policed, is just whataboutery, it's the fact that Parkrun won't make their women's category only for women that's the problem. If they're allowing it to be a mixed sex category then they should just say so and stop prevaricating, that way it would be clear that women have yet again had something taken off them. It's the fact that they've done that but won't admit to having done that, is what makes this so bad.

It will be carried forward as reserves.

Money can be taken out of the company as expenses or salary.

If it’s a competition. Against yourself why do they place you against everyone else? It would just be your time versus your previous times.

😂

This is not how park run works. There is no way to police this.

Something that puzzles me is that if they are concerned about privacy presumably they could stop sharing the individual results of each runner.

(This would also make it more difficult for people to claim that anyone was in the wrong category)

However this seems to be important to people.

So.what happens to all the profit?

I’ve seen loads of Facebook comments saying “parkrun is just for fun, the only race is against yourself.” This really grinds my gears. If it was just for fun, why have categories and publish results? And it’s not a race against yourself if you’re trying to go up in the categories.

Like I previously said, it’s another area of society where men feel like they can encroach on women’s rights in order to feel “validated.” It’s wrong, and I’m sick of being “used” in such a way.

absolutely!

It is set up as a charity and as a company limited by guarantee, so it has no shareholders and no way to distribute profit.

Was he called sir cos he was a bloke?

The arguments all remain the same as they have been for years.

’it is not a competition’

It is if there is any ranking of results and any collecting and/or publishing of ‘records’. The behaviour makes a lie of that declaration.

”it cannot be policed”

(often with threats of withdrawing) Very little in life can be 100% ‘policed’. Does that mean we abandon all laws, regulations and policies? The very first step is to set out a clear policy and clear expectations. Issue resolution doesn’t have to be the responsibility of every volunteer. Plus, it can be done retrospectively such as disqualification of entries if evidence is provided to negate the entry.

‘it is not the Olympics”

Firstly, grassroots sport athletes should expect fair sport as much as can be possibly provided. If that was the case, why does a passport or birth certificate need to be provided when registering a child at football?

Secondly, people forget that grassroots sports feed athletes up to the elite levels. Everyone starts somewhere. People who only do school sports can end up at the Olympics. So this type of argument of ‘it is just grassroots’ is immediately dismissible as not barely credible. That statement says more about that person’s usage of the sport. They are making a value statement only relative to their own situation.

Puzzled by the use of the word parasitising, they're starting their own organisation, they might be copying a winning formula, but that's how the business world works. You said yourself that Parkrun is a business, and as such is subject to the same law's as every other business. If they're advertising a woman's category, then only women are allowed into it, it's false and misleading advertising otherwise.

I do find it funny this gets defended as "inclusive". Here's the Google definition:

Inclusivity - the practice or policy of including all types of people fairly and equally, making sure no one is left out based on their race, gender, age, religion, ability, or background.

It's not treating all types of people fairly or equally. It's fundamentally unfair to women.

You also can't be inclusive and tell people they should leave. You aren't trying to include all people, you just want the ones who agree with you.

I don't know about the legality, I hope that ends up in the courts and we will find out.