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/

sorry to put you on the spot, mushy, but what would happen then if you had a trans woman listed as the fastest female runner, and other women complained after that?
Escalate it up the chain of command or "computer says no" and that's it?

I'm trying to work it out in my head how I'd feel about it. I'm not a fantastic runner (any more, i was never really fast but did have a few age-category triumphs in the past, not at a parkrun). And the only conclusion i can come to is that even though i try to damp it down, and even though i am mostly focussed on my own pb, i would be hugely irritated to be knocked back a place by a trans woman running as a woman. Enough not to go back, probably because I'm petty as well as competitive.

I'd listen to them ranting, take their details, and then log a ticket with HQ.

As a volunteer, it's not my job to put myself in a position where I can be threatened or made to feel unsafe. If people want to rant and rave, the safest thing to do is to let them feel heard and write something down.

It's also not generally acceptable anymore for run directors to remove participants from the results, even if they are aware of actual cheating. That's for them to log, and leave with HQ to deal with. There is specific guidance on this.

🙄

The tagline should have an asterisk by the word 'timed' and the footnote "not necessarily accurately". At least according to posters on here who seem to know how the timing is done.

And that doesn't deal with the publishing of results by age and sex categories, also quite possibly inaccurate.

It's quite nasty and sexist how the feelings of women who weren't ranked top because of male cheats are completely dismissed, while the feelings of the male cheats are all important. I can't think of any other area where cheating is celebrated.

@Brefugee if we received a verbal complaint about a transwoman being the first female finisher or showing up as the female course record holder, as a run director on the day I would complete the incident form when processing results saying that complaint had been made. If it was emailed in, our event directors (they're the ones nominally "in charge" of our event) would pick it up and again I imagine email the complaint to HQ.

It's a complaint about official parkrun policy so we don't have any leeway to change anything, or to really comment about why that rule is in place.

For what it's worth, 99% of runners at our parkrun probably aren't bothered by the course records - most probably don't even know what they are! People really care about their own PBs, if you're pushing hard it's great to get an email saying congrats on your PB. Our men's course record was broken by someone visiting from up north last year, a really great runner who smashed it by 30 seconds. It's now far out of reach for all the local high level club runners, but they still come along and it's great if they can get a PB for themselves even if they are unlikely to get a new course record.

Yes just do this. It needs to change at PR level not volunteer level

No one should feel unsafe, this man showed he was violent in the end.

It’s a free event that does a great job. People probably cheat all of the time. I know someone who misses out a lap to record a better time. They are just cheating themselves. The only person you are competing against is yourself. Sure you can use other people’s results to motivate you. I regularly make it my aim to beat the person who was in front of me the previous week regardless of their sex. It’s all good.

The timings / results aren’t done under race conditions. Some of my times are more than 2 minutes out. I’m usually at the back so if one person is missed crossing the line then I have an incorrect result. Who cares.

Of course it’s nice to hold a course record but all it takes is for Laura Muir to decide to run your local parkrun one week and you are no longer the course record holder. It’s all good fun. I think most park run record holders these days are club runners. It’s not their goal to be a parkrun record holder. They are participating as part of their training, or perhaps to run with their family etc. I can’t imagine a female athlete being upset at being beaten by a trans women in a non competitive all inclusive fun event like parkrun.

Please don’t let this put you and your children off participating in an event you enjoy so much.

@Chersfrozenface timekeeping is one of my favourite volunteer roles! It's done via an app on your phone these days, you stand at the finish and click the screen each time someone crosses the finish line. It's relatively accurate, but during busy periods (we get 500+ finishers) when people are sprint finishing in bunches and the finish funnel can back up, it's not uncommon to miss or add an extra click by mistake. And in results processing we then need to delete times/positions or adjust things, to allow for tokens being dropped or people funnel ducking and stuff like that. So you might get given finish token 100, but end up with place 99 or 103 depending on how much editing we do. The times are usually as close as we can get them based on the number checking volunteer cross-referencing. But it's not chip timing, no official records will be set based on me and my finger tapping skills!

Interesting that you immediately turned "woman making a (valid) complaint about a male in the female category" into "ranting and raving".

Some internalised misogyny going on there?

If anyone was actually against trans people being accepted at parkrun, they'd just stop volunteering. And then parkrun would fold. As it turns out, plenty of people are happy to continue to volunteer to ensure parkrun continues

But thats bollocks. They'd have to give up what they enjoy to let other people take the piss. Why should they?
There are many women putting up with this kind of nonsense to keep their jobs, sports, hobbies. It doesn't mean they are ok with it.

Thats as it may but PR times are put on the power of ten website, so they aren't that inaccurate.

Allowing trans men to compete against women is just another reason for women not to do sport, as if there isn't enough hurdles to over come.

To be honest, i'm absolutely amazed so many women on MN (if they are women) seem to be perfectly ok with this.

Nope, it's based on both 1) the comments on this thread from people like you and 2) the complaints I've had to field at parkrun before.

Before we accepted barcodes on phones (a HQ policy change), I got verbally abused by people for enforcing the rules. You'd be amazed how people think they are entitled to treat unpaid volunteers. Or perhaps you wouldn't be.

Surely she's in prison?

To be honest, i'm absolutely amazed so many women on MN (if they are women) seem to be perfectly ok with this.

There are many women who are ok with men having more opportunities than women and their thoughts and feelings being considered as more important than women's. Sexism (internalised or from men) is an issue to a lesser or greater degree.

'People like you'

It IS a race for some. If it wasn't there would be no need to post times and categories. People could just time themselves if they wanted to. Repeatedly stating its not a race does not mean people don't relate to it like that and often value it because of that.

Yes, he is in prison. No woman has beaten his time since he set the record for the women's race

I've seen the horrendous behaviour some of the RDs have to put up with. Including 2 grown men screaming at a much shorter, slighter woman (1st place was an idiot who took it so seriously they cut a good 1/4 mile off a loop and 2nd place, unsurprisingly wasn't happy. In the meantime I wasn't happy because the idiot had nearly knocked me over on a very muddy, slippery hill as he lapped me. End result was the RD couldn't do anything even if she had wanted to)

I certainly wouldn't want to be in their position that's for sure

Is anyone actually talking about trans people not being accepted? I'm personally completely behind TW being fully accepted. But they are men and always will be and so should be in the men's categories. It's not helpful to suggest anyone's being excluded when that's factually incorrect.

I think the issue here is that some people think that a man's right to be validated as a woman is paramount which means that it IS exclusion to prevent men who say they are women from competing as women.

The fact that they are not really excluded because they can compete as men like every other man is ignored.

Is anyone actually talking about trans people not being accepted? I'm personally completely behind TW being fully accepted. But they are men and always will be and so should be in the men's categories. It's not helpful to suggest anyone's being excluded when that's factually incorrect.

yepp, nobody is sawing that TW shouldn't be allowed to take part in sport. Plenty of people are saying that they should compete in the correct sex-category. I don't think I've seen anyone saying that TW shouldn't be allowed to take part at all

"people like you"

That would be "women who care about women receiving fair and equitable treatment in society", then.

Not sure why you have such a problem with that but okay, you do you.

I think almost everybody on the thread agrees they should take part in the correct sex category. The issue mostly under discussion is whether or how it’s possible for Parkrun to police that.

Parkrun’s position of supporting people to register by gender and not sex is, however, unhelpful. I’d welcome them changing that, but I don’t think it would change some people self identifying, and I also don’t think it’s possible to police it.

I’m ok with that. It doesn’t even have to be two sex categories, there could be an open category as a third.

The post above from PR is where I’d like to see change to sex not gender.