ParkRun and Transgender record breaker

[PennysLane]

Trans runner (M to F) has smashed a woman’s record. Turns out he’s an attempted murderer too.

He attempted to murder the HR Manager of U.K. Athletics after he investigated his eligibility to compete as a woman. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauren_Jeska )

I have enjoyed Parkrun on several occasions with my children, I’ll not be doing it again until they get this sorted. If at all.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/22/parkrun-self-id-male-runners-smash-womens-records/

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/23/transgender-murder-parkrun/

They don't have categories, it's a run/jog/walk for all.
They publish the results a few hours afterwards so you can check your time, and next to your name it says M or F which some people have a problem with as they are trying to race against the others taking part.

They also asked what the structure is, ie is it a charity. There is clearly an organisation, brand and structure, it's not just a group of random people setting up a run in a park.

If I were to organise a fun run in my local park, is it "parkrun" or not?

“Lauren Jeska, 41, was jailed in 2017 after repeatedly stabbing UK Athletics official Ralph Knibbs, 48, after he questioned her eligibility to compete as a woman.”

No it is a run in the park. ParkRun is like an organisation.

As a woman who isnt trans, that's a terrible idea - despite what some people on here insist, no you can't always tell and talk about deterring people from turning up if they think they might get challenged over their band colour as some over zealous fuckwit thinks they don't look womanly enough, whatever the hell that is.
If you want to race, race. Just leave everyone else alone trying to tag and police them.

Can I ask how you’d like Parkrun to resolve it though? I don’t disagree, men should not be running in the women’s category. You’ve a right to be pissed off. But how would you know? Would you base it on appearance? Would you want to be able to say to the Run Director, hang on, I thought I came first woman this morning, and I thought I got a course record, but it appears that one of the people I thought were men who came in ahead of me may have been identifying as a woman, can you find out who and ask them if they actually are a man? And invalidate their result? Would you expect them to go back and remove results from many years ago if it came to light after the fact?

I don’t think anyone on here is disagreeing with the principle. I think some of us are just saying that it’s not fair to be attacking Parkrun for not resolving a problem that there might not be a way for them to resolve, given the reality of how the event is run.

I mean that quotation just makes my head ache.

You would think that ANY organisation after experiencing that would want to remove the right of males to race as women.

Seems women just don't matter as much as the demands of entitled men.

Be kind ladies.

“Lauren Jeska, 41, was jailed in 2017 after repeatedly stabbing UK Athletics official Ralph Knibbs, 48, after he questioned her eligibility to compete as a woman.”

Yes, agree it's not a good idea for volunteers to challenge males identifying as women. What would help is clear guidance that people need to register with their biological sex, or there could be a third trans category. M/F/T

Yes, this- it's an organisation, someone else organising a fun run in the park would be doing just that, organising their own fun run.

No it is a run in the park. ParkRun is like an organisation.

Yes, that's the point

Yes, agree it's not a good idea for volunteers to challenge males identifying as women. What would help is clear guidance that people need to register with their biological sex, or there could be a third trans category. M/F/T

But they just want to cheat in peace.

It makes my head ache as well that you’re expecting volunteers running a fun run in a park on a Saturday morning to put themselves in that position.

All of those on here saying the results don't matter or that women shouldn't care if a male cheats seem to have missed the obvious fact that the results DO matter to the likes Jeska.

The whole point is that he is validated.

This mattered so much that he was prepared to nearly kill someone for it.

A group of people set up a run in their local park and got other people involved and did it on a weekly basis. They then set up similar events in other locations and enabled other people to set up similar events in their local parks under the Parkrun concept. If you just set up a run it would not be park run but you could register to set up a parkrun in your local park.
the first park run was in 2004 and in 2017 the organization that supports parkrun events became a registered charity.

No... fairly obviously if you stop publishing the metric by which people are unfairly compared then nobody suffers.

I'm not.

I'm expecting the categories to be clear and for men to stop lying and for society to stop enabling males by claiming that it doesn't matter.

I'm expecting Park Run to remove this record, they know this is a man.

Women are never allowed to want to be competitive, are they? Except the special ones, apparently, demonstrating that everyone knows which sex they are.

And UK Athletics is addressing the issue. Parkrun is not UK Athletics.

What is this nonsense and why is there suddenly an article about it now? This is only about the course record for one parkrun in Wales, which was set at a run back in 2012. And the individual committed the assault in 2016 and was jailed in 2017. Why is this suddenly a thing?

For what it's worth, the female course record at my local event where I often volunteer or run direct is a good 25 seconds quicker, and our course has several hills on it, so any of those women who've gone sub-18 at our event could go and run at Aber and set a new course record if they wanted to.

I was there when our course record was broken and no I didn't ask to inspect the genitalia of the lady who broke it. We don't interrogate any of the hundreds of people who come to run with us each week, it's just a way to encourage people to exercise and enjoy themselves in the park!

I'm expecting the categories to be clear and for men to stop lying and for society to stop enabling males by claiming that it doesn't matter.

Yes. If people don't stop doing this, the blatant unfairness is going to come up time and time again.

Exactly, they have enough to sort out and process!
Ours is always asking for volunteers, not got round to doing it yet as sounds like too much hard work - especially if they were also starting to get by some
"Excuse me! Can you check the results from this morning please, I think the woman in front of me was a bloke, can you go check?!"
You'd probably be met with a massive eye roll and WTF at anyone receiving that message 😁

I guess I could only go on appearance, and yes I absolutely would challenge it and ask them to invalidate the result.

No it isn't but it could follow the lead and make registration clearly sex based and say that transgender males can compete as their birth sex.

They could also remove this result and that of any other man they know has cheated.

That would be respectful of women.

People have said they don't expect volunteers to challenge people, you can see how it ended up for poor Ralph Knibbs.