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/

It’s like complaining about your school’s under 10s football matches not using VAR.

No it's like the other team having a few 16 year olds on the team and pretending the teams are equal. Then if the under 10s protest you can tell them don't worry its not a proper or elite competition

And then they go on to win the league with their team on the trophy for years.

This.

Ok, so park run is a bit of fun. Great! So why bother collating data then? Men taking part receive accurate figures based on how they compare to other men. They can use these stats to motivate themselves and feel great about how fit they are compared to their peers.

Women’s statistics will be flawed, however. Yes, women can compete against their own personal best time. But where’s the fun for women if they can’t see a truthful picture of how they’re faring against their own sex class?

TLDR This is unequal. Men get accurate stats, women don’t. If the stats don’t really matter anyway (because it’s all a bit of fun) then why the heck are they being recorded in the first place?

Men taking part receive accurate figures based on how they compare to other men

Well, maybe not. Presumably trans men are also running parkrun, in the men's category (and usually recording slower times, thus skewing the age grading), so men will believe they're faster than they actually are?

But obviously we have no idea how much of this is happening.

I don't think so. Age grading are not calculated by park run times but by world athletics - which TM would not be quick enough to enter on account of their female bodies.

https://www.parkrun.org.uk/royaltunbridgewells/news/2014/10/09/age-grading-explained/

Age grading are not calculated by park run times but by world athletics - which TM would not be quick enough to enter on account of their female bodies

Yes - they're calculated by World Athletics and are percentages of a world record/best known time. Nothing to do with "entering" per se. But I'd always thought that if you got lots of people running slower times, then it would adjust and give the better times an even better ranking, iyswim. I'm probably wrong. But I'm well aware that age gradings aren't a parkrun- only thing!! 😄

I don't think so but it would be good to hear that definitely if anyone here can do that?

Can definitely do what?

Age gradings are calculated against the world record times, and so get recalibrated - for every user, not just parkrun - when there is a new record

It doesn't matter how many parkrunners run whatever time they run - it does not affect the age grading. Your personal percentage is how you performed against the record holders.

It lets you compare by category - and you can sort the results table by age grading if you wish

Cheers @AuntieStella , you're always the font of knowledge on running lore!

Some of the comments here really illustrate why we're in this mess. So many women rushing to prove how kind they are by claiming that equality for women is not important. Sickening.

Gender is an ancient term; predating biological sex by many millenia. (It literally means "presumed sex").
In fact our understanding of what makes people "biologically" male or female is constantly developing.
Current anatomy uses five different markers to assign a sex to a person at birth: 1) Genitalia 2) reproductive organs 3) gonads 4) sex chromosomes 5) sex hormones and how they affect the cells of the body; especially the brain as there are male and female brain types.
The fifth one is by far the most important, as I think we'd all agree that what's between the ears is more important that what's between the legs.
Most people tick all 5 boxes male or female; around 2% don't. They are usually brought up by their parents as the gender they most externally resemble.
Transgender people; by and large, are peaceful people who feel that what's between their ears doesn't match what's between their legs. They are very much hated, by and large and many feel like they are treated like monsters. As is amply evidenced here. By changing the age-old definition of gender to be exactly equal to sex, you will be taking rights away from all those people by exclusion -transgender, and intersex of all varieties.
Not only that, but you will impose the dangerous precedent which all feminists have been trying to avoid of defining and limiting cis women purely based on what's between their legs. We've been fighting to have that association removed for over 100 years.
As for sport, there are always outliers to the "women" and "men" definitions, even in cis competitions. Some men are weaker, some women ate stronger. That's why basing competition shoukd be off of performance categories; rather than sex. Bit like boxing has featherweight and bantamweight. Bit like the paralympics categorises people into similar disability categories.
As for "female only" spaces like toilets and changing rooms, nobody I know is frightened to send their boys into the male bathroom. There are far more gay men than there are transwomen. Nobody is worried about aeroplane toilets or disabled cubicles.
The one place I would absolutely agree to exclude transwomen with penises from are refuges, prisons and healthcare. But we have to offer alternative safe spaces for trans men and women, too.
Finally, for this particular article, this person is vile. This person is a murderer. Their sport record as well as any other records should be expunged. This should be the same for any woman, man or non-binary person who commits crimes.

Gender is an ancient term; predating biological sex by many millenia. (It literally means "presumed sex").

This is nonsense.

First of all, gender' is a word in English. There are many other languages, and many have only one word for the quality of being male of female.

It has never meant "presumed sex". It's from the Anglo-Norman and Middle French gendre (Anglo-Norman and Middle French, French genre ) kind, sort (c1125 in Old French), sex, quality of being male or female (second half of the 12th cent),

It was expanded to mean the grammatical class of words in some languages - masculine, feminine and neuter (e.g. Latin, German, Old English), masculine and feminine in many families of languages (Celtic languages, Latin-based languages).

In fact our understanding of what makes people "biologically" male or female is constantly developing.

This too is nonsense. There are only two sexes in mammalian species, of which Homo sapiens, humans, is one.

Oh no, not the fake science fuckery again with a great dollop of pink and blue brain.

That's why basing competition shoukd be off of performance categories; rather than sex. Bit like boxing has featherweight and bantamweight

Erm... but they're still divided by sex as well. You don't get male featherweight boxers fighting female featherweights, for very good reason - ie that a 125lb man has significantly more strength and power than a 125lb woman.

I'd like to see the vagina on a British ship or a French table which tells you how they've been gendered.
Of course gender predates our understanding of biological sex. Gender was based on what people (and objects) were presumed to be depending on their appearance.
Of course any languages have no gender pronoun at all. That's not what we're talking about.
And the 5 indicator scale is a well-documented standard, not cod science.
XY people can be born with vaginas and female internal sex organs as their cells don't react to androgen. XX people can be born with a lot of testosterone which makes them bigger and stronger.
Some intersex people don't know they are intersex until puberty.
Currently they can be excluded from competing in sports because of their biology.
This is why it's daft.

I'd like to see the vagina on a British ship or a French table which tells you how they've been gendered.

Well, they wouldn't have one, would they? Because they are of a grammatical gender, not a biological sex.

Of course gender predates our understanding of biological sex. Gender was based on what people (and objects) were presumed to be depending on their appearance.

So a Latin table looks female? How does it do that, then? In German Tisch is masculine while Tafel is feminine, yet they mean the same thing. The French word for vagina, vagin, is grammatically masculine.

And in the ancestor of the overwhelming majority of European languages, and those of the Iranian plateau and northern Indian subcontinent, the two grammatical genders were animate and inanimate. No connection with biological sex or appearance thereof at all. The words that developed from this ancestor language developed grammatical genders arbitrarily.

Millennia ago our ancestors didn't give a fuck about gender identities, but they did know about biologial sex when they started farming. Shame all that carefully curated knowledge got diluted through the generations to result in people talking bollocks to justify bollock-owners cheating.

Not only that, but you will impose the dangerous precedent which all feminists have been trying to avoid of defining and limiting cis women purely based on what's between their legs. We've been fighting to have that association removed for over 100 years.

Actually, feminists have been fighting to avoid defining and limiting women to outdated, restrictive stereotypes.

The TRAs are the ones trying to re-classify 'women' as people who conform to sex stereotypes and have pink brains instead of blue brains.

The TRAs have labelled me a 'birthing parent', a 'menstruator', a 'uterus haver'. I've never been more reduced to bits and pieces of my genitalia since the TRAs came on the scene.

As for "female only" spaces like toilets and changing rooms, nobody I know is frightened to send their boys into the male bathroom.

This is simply not true.

I have 3 sons and when they were young (but too old for going in to the female bathroom) I would hover by the door like a hawk watching who entered after them. If they were taking even a few seconds longer than expected I would shout through into the toilet to get a response from them. Luckily most of the time I could send them in a pair or in triplicate - safety in numbers!

I sent them into the male bathrooms because they are male and above the age of about 7 it's not reasonable to have them in the female spaces. I found they stopped wanting to anyway because it made them uncomfortable as by that age they are very aware of their sex.

That doesn't mean I wasn't acutely aware of the risk male spaces pose to young boys. I very much was and made attempts to mitigate that risk where possible.

Unlike some people though I've never thought my concerns over male bathrooms for my male children should mean that the space belonging to women and girls can be encroached on.

@Sladurche Transgender people; by and large, are peaceful people who feel that what's between their ears doesn't match what's between their legs. They are very much hated, by and large and many feel like they are treated like monsters.

Most people are, by and large peaceful.
People that act imitate the opposite sex are not treated like monsters at ALL. They have had successful films, are represented in theatre, TV and have been celebrated. It’s when men actually want to be considered women in law that there’s an issue.
We don’t tell people that have body dysmorphia that yes they are ugly or fat.We work with them to see the truth.

And I for one still worry about my son around other men. In toilets, on a night out just in general.

We've been fighting to have that association removed for over 100 years

Yes for years womens sport has been less accessible, less well paid, fewer athletes sponsored, and generally "behind" men's sport.

See women only being able to compete in marathons at the Olympics since the 1980s, womens boxing only included in 2012. Womens football (or netball) rarely getting any TV coverage etc. So why on earth would women give up the (immensely slow but important) progress that has been made and allow men to compete in their category?

As for sport, there are always outliers to the "women" and "men" definitions, even in cis competitions. Some men are weaker, some women ate stronger. That's why basing competition shoukd be off of performance categories; rather than sex. Bit like boxing has featherweight and bantamweight. Bit like the paralympics categorises people into similar disability categories.

...but the outliers in women's competition wouldn't win or challenge the top men because men have a biological physical advantage in almost every sport Serena Williams dominated women's tennis for probably a decade, and is arguably the greatest female player of all time. Would she have won a match against any of the top men's players? No. Does this take away from any of her achievements on the women's circuit? Also no.

And in case it escaped your notice the paralympics like almost every other sports competition categorises people by sex as well as those with similar disabilities.

We've been fighting to have that association removed for over 100 years
No we haven't @Sladurche You seem to have fallen for the misconception that feminism wants to ignore the physical differences between the sexes which is absolutely not true. Also where do you het your figure of 2% of people not being male or female from? Are you referring to intersex? The figure is much lower. And that has nothing to do with being trans anyway.

Also where do you het your figure of 2% of people not being male or female from? Are you referring to intersex? The figure is much lower.

Indeed. The percentage of the human population with DSDs is 0.018%.

And all those with a DSD are either male or female.

Times from official races are taken seriously. Times from parkruns are not.

Tell that to the teenage girls on our local county team whose teams use their parkrun times as set of their time trial qualifiers.

Just to pick up on a few points. It's regressive old-fashioned and quite frankly offensive nonsense to suggest there are lady brains and men brains. Loads of people are afraid to send their boys into the men's. Their are threads on MN dealing explicitly and solely with that. Don't call women cis unless they self identify as such. I am not cis because I don't identify as a woman and neither do loads of others. There are alternative spaces for TW in terms of prisons - the prison for male bodied people. Most sports do not have cross over between elite men and elite women. A top class women cannot compete with a top class women because of all the physical differences which advantage women. There are a lot of made up pseudofacts in your post.