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/

Gender is an ancient term; predating biological sex by many millenia. (It literally means "presumed sex"). Not true.
Nobody is worried about aeroplane toilets or disabled cubicles.
I'm sure if you actually thought about it for a second, you could figure out why but I just wanted to add I actually do hate unisex cubicles. The best way to separate facilities would be to have one for people who stand up to pee and one for people who sit down. That way the people who sit down wouldn't have to clean the seat and stand the piss of the stand-uppers. Hmm, I wonder what we could call them?

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.

Sex is noted at birth, not assigned. By using 1) in your list, that's it.

Brain types indeed! What nonsense

Please stop exploiting the experiences of people with rare DSDs in the service of males who think their special feelings should outrank anyone else's. People with DSDs (intersex is an outdated and offensive term) have repeatedly asked not to be dragged into this, it's nothing to do with them.

No one is excluded from competing in sports. Some people aren't able to compete in the categories they'd like, because they are not the Main Character in the world and other people have needs and wishes too.

You do know men can also sit down to pee and hold their willy pointing down into the loo?

Please stop exploiting the experiences of people with rare DSDs in the service of males who think their special feelings should outrank anyone else's. People with DSDs (intersex is an outdated and offensive term) have repeatedly asked not to be dragged into this

Good point

"intersex is an outdated and offensive term"

Indeed.

Which, astonishingly, didn't stop a health survey, funded by UK Research and Innovation (the UK Government-funded body that invests in science and research) amongst others, from using 'Intersex' as one of the options in the first question, about "sex assigned at birth".

See screenshot in the first post on this thread
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4814227-our-future-health-asks-for-sex-assigned-at-birth?page=1

A supposedly scientific health survey, FFS

You do know men can also sit down to pee and hold their willy pointing down into the loo?
Of course. If you know how to make them do it in public toilets let me know. Something tells me that if they can't be arsed to put the toilet seat up and aim, they probably won't respond well to you telling them to sit down. What a weird response. 😆

DM article is not behind a paywall.

So what is the logic here, should remove LJ from the Aberwystwyth course women's record because...
A) Y chromosome bearer (and sensitive to testosterone)
B) convicted of a very violent offence
C) probably excess testosterone levels (why LJ's formal records were stripped)
D) some combo of above
E) PP "just don't like him"

Does local Abba PkRn group get to decide, or is it for PkRun Uk to decide, or PkRun international to decide?

How violent does an offence have to be if (B) is the reason? Is suspicion about testosterone levels good enough for criteria (C) ? Who gets to decide how much someone is disliked and criteria E should apply?

What would due process be (including adjudication & appeals available) for any of applying criteria A-E? Who is responsible for making sure (A) to (E) get applied at other PkRuns?

For me it's just A). The process would be wiping records of people proven to be male. It's not perfect but it's a message that saying you're female when you're male ia cheating.

Or pre birth using scans and looking at 1).

B) won't fly. They hold parkruns in prisons and YOIs

Also, given the announcement this week about triathlons, I don't think parkrun HQ will do anything. The new rules for that apply only to certain higher levels of competition, and others - such as "entry level" ones - do not have to follow. Parkrun sees itself as a run not a race, and so it does not have to follow the rules for affiliated athletics. And I think it will stay that way

What are male and female brains? How do I find out which sort I have?

I’m female and so my brain is female.

Well, if you can ever get anyone to look inside it's easy. If it's pink it's a girl brain, boys are blue.

So are non binary brains purple ?

Same, but I as someone who is not trans have a strong sense of identifying as a woman too so can see where people who are trans are coming from, whether they're trans women or trans men.
It's nothing to do with having a "male or female " brain.

And that's nothing to do with Park Run and the actual thread anyway so was a bit of a derail engaging with it, sorry

I think you can have a strong sense of feeling feminine. But yes, this has nothing to do with sport. Sport doesn't care about your inner feelings. You might as well have categories based on star signs.

What would "feeling feminine" look like?

Caring? Weeping more readily? Fond of sewing, home decorating, flower arranging?

Anyway, definitions of "femininity" vary by culture and background. In Japan, for instance, samurai were heavily into flower arranging.

No genital inspections would be needed. Make a rule, no males in female race. A complaint goes in : this person is male. A short search is done, a letter sent. “We have suspended you from the female race as we have had a report that this category is incorrect. You may appeal by x y z.” Total time, about 5 mins. The more people knew it would happen, the less 5 mins would need to be spent. I’d imagine someone in a male prison would not pass the appeal. There might be a couple of India Willoughbys that mess up the system, but it’s going to take sports being firm a few times and it will soon be apparent that stubbornness in the face of reality is pointless. I wouldn’t expect park runs to deal with complex cases like Caster Semenya, but I think that’s likely to only be a problem in certain countries. In almost all cases, I’d imagine a brief phone call would be enough to establish the truth.

And let’s be clear - any difficulties arising from this would absolutely be from male people breaking the rules, not the rules themselves.

No one needs to be inspected as they're pretty blatant about it and you can tell the difference when someone is running.

Exactly that. You can identify with whatever stereotypes your current location and culture regard as "feminine". It doesn't make you female.

those who say 'it doesn't matter' - of course it does! researchers, including those researching sex differences in sports, use this freely available data for studies.
allowing males to be recorded as female makes the data less meaningful.

Park run organisers sending out letters, who the F has time for that. Our local PkRn struggles to get volunteer marshalls each & every week, they don't have time to police course records like that.

The things about statistics is that one or 2 'bad' data points (outliers) don't change the results if you're dealing with a huge dataset. Whatever PkRun has in public domain is potentially beyond vast dataset. A tiny number of TWs or TMs can't change the overall between-sex comparisons.

If they are using it, then I hope they are already caveating it to cover both the timing being by amateur volunteers, and that category of runner is not verified.

They would be much better off using published results tables from affiliated events