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/

I personally think I am seeing the bigger picture. I am totally against men in women’s sport in general, as the bigger picture. What I don’t think is fair is taking aim at Parkrun, a local level volunteer run event, for not taking action that poses challenges that even much bigger global organisations are finding difficult to address.

It didn't have to pose any challenge. They could easily have wiped any trace of him from the records on the ground of him trying to kill someone.

I've never participated in the Tour de France. I still don't think it's acceptable to cheat in it and I have a strong view on that.

Your sneeriness in your assumption that the women who are complaining about a policy which removes the integrity of the women's event only are all couch potatoes who never exercise.

This doesn't address the problem.

Is men cheating women out of recognition in ParkRun OK if they are well-behaved? Is it all criminal acts which should disqualify men from the competition, or only attempted murder?

Just men who attempt murder over the title? What about men who attempt murder in general? Or murderers fully stop? Or rapists?
How is Parkrun going to tell whether a woman is a woman, or a trans woman? Are they relying on reports? Do they have to verify those reports? How are they verifying them? Birth certificates? GRC? Remember this is an event run by volunteers.

Isn’t that saying that nobody can criticise smaller organisations until the big organisations have got themselves sorted out? I don’t think that’s good enough. I think it needs to be sorted at all levels and if it has to start at grass roots level and work its way up, then so be it.

It does matter because you're all complaining about a fun run, where the times are often invented. It's not a race. It's not accurate.

I would understand some of the comments on this thread if they were aimed at an actual race where the timing was accurate and carried out by paid staff. With actual races, there is enough money involved to investigate any allegations of misconduct with record holders. With actual races, there is a concept of winning against other people. With actual races, the results do matter because they can be used as qualifying times for other races.

You're all complaining about a nice social activity run by grassroots volunteers (unpaid) on behalf of a charity that aims to get everyone outside doing some exercise at their own pace.

If it wasn't for parkrun, I would never do any exercise ever. Like many women who aren't particularly sporty, the UK school system robbed me of my confidence to exercise and didn't give me any opportunities to improve. parkrun has helped me see that I can compete against myself, and it's OK to be shit at sport but still have a go. I'm allowed to bring my full self to parkrun. I don't wear makeup or heels or attempt to be some ideal woman I see in the media. I just turn up as an unairbrushed, lumpy me, in all of my natural averageness. And I don't feel judged.

It's not intended to be serious. It's intended to be social, inclusive and welcoming. A trans person faces all kinds of struggles Monday to Friday - just read the attitudes on this thread - parkrun gives them an opportunity to turn up on Saturday morning as the person they feel they are, and to just run, walk, jog or volunteer. No masking, no pretending, just being themselves.

That's not just a gift reserved for trans people either.

We get people who are seriously ill and are too slow to participate in any other kind of sporting activity. They're welcomed at parkrun and supported by the community to do the whole course at their own pace or, if they're not up to it, what part of the course they can manage that day.

We get wheelchair users who can face accessibility challenges elsewhere.

We get women running in hijabs who feel out of place elsewhere.

We get DV victims rebuilding their lives and making links to new communities under a new name.

It's for everyone. And a lot of the groups that fall into everyone are female.

Honestly, those of you coming after parkrun are not seeing the bigger picture of what parkrun does for women. It would be extremely harmful to take down this organisation in your witchhunt.

Go fight your debate in competitive sport. Don't target a charity enriching the lives of women - and everyone else.

I... genuinely don't get your comment.

A lot of people who participate in parkrun - including me - are not particularly fit. Even if you've never run before, you'd probably be faster than I am.

I'm not criticising whatever level of sporting ability you might or might not have. I'm criticising people for complaining about an event where they don't understand the ethos or the practicalities.

If you understood parkrun at all, you would understand how this could not be construed as cheating.

No, we're saying it's inappropriate to apply race standards to events that are not and have never pretended to be races.

I would understand some of the comments on this thread if they were aimed at an actual race where the timing was accurate and carried out by paid staff. With actual races, there is enough money involved to investigate any allegations of misconduct with record holders. With actual races, there is a concept of winning against other people. With actual races, the results do matter because they can be used as qualifying times for other races.

Races organised by running clubs all over the country are organised by volunteers. Granted, entrants usually pay a fee to enter and this fee goes towards UKA affiliation (what matters).
parkrun can choose to say they align with UKA when it comes to not allowing men to run in the women's category. This would cost nothing.

So why publish results at all?

Parkrun as an organisation is absolutely huge. They could very easily develop a policy that states that only women can hold female course records and implement a way to enforce it, if they really wanted to.

Saying Parkrun is not a race is not a defence here. To many people it is a race and treat it as such.

They publish course records. Anyone born as a man should not hold records for female categories.

How? How would they enforce it?

For fun? For curiosity? You can come "first" as much as you can if you really want to, but you're not going to get a prize because parkrun is not a competition. Those that treat it as such and insist it is are trying to impose their personal views on these events with no regard for the reality of the situation.

If you want to treat it as a competition then fine, but be aware that that's on you and don't demand the rest of the community conform to your view.

Or publish results alphabetically or fastest to slowest, for all participants.

With the caveat that they are not accurate.

And without age and sex categories.

Because as we have established, those categories are meaningless.

If people want to treat it as a race they need to realise that's their issue and not try to force it on everyone else.

By having a finishing funnel, finish tokens, a stopwatch, publishing times in finishing order etc means that there is an element of competition though, even if you're someone at the back who isn't really interested in your time and age grading.
It's set up in a similar way to a race even if it isn't one it's disingenuous to pretend it's simply a community group run where times are immaterial

That's not what I am saying at all.

If people want to go to parkrun and just run, that's great. They can either not bother taking a barcode or they can just ignore their times on the website

If people do want to treat it as a race, that doesn't impede on the other group at all, but the fact is that Parkrun maintain a list of course records and it's not unreasonable to say that the female records should be just that, just as if a 20 year old was claiming to be 60 to get an age category record.

It's really spectacularly uncontroversial to the point it shouldn't even need to be up for discussion.

Do you know what? I am so fucking tired of this. So tired of having to argue, over and over again, that women matter in their own right. Because that's what it boils down to. We're not a subset of men. We're not 'not-men'. We're not dickless men. We're not support humans for men. We're not a perception in a man's head, a stereotype of femininity, a set of holes for men's sexual use or any of the other frankly demeaning, dismissive and regressive ways we're viewed all too often.

Women are entitled to take a full role in society. We are entitled to our own spaces, our own sporting categories, to have our particular needs met. It doesn't matter if it's parkrun or prisons, or hospital wards, rape crisis centres, public toilets, lesbian dating apps, rugby teams or any of the other places where women should have an expectation of safety, privacy, dignity and fairness. It is not unreasonable, and certainly not 'hatred', to expect places that are only for women not men - however they identify.

If you're a woman arguing for transwomen inclusion in women's spaces, stop and ask yourself why you think your own sex doesn't matter. Why you think it's more important that men's feelings take precedence over women - all women, including female prisoners, rape victims, sportswomen, women of faith, women of different cultures, women with LDs, disabled women, young girls, women you don't particularly like. All women. All categories of woman are affected in some way, sooner or later, by continued transgressions of men into women's spaces.

Women matter. This should be the point that is not up for debate.

I would suggest that removing female category records from people who are known to be men is a pretty simple first step.

Exactly this, it isnt a race however much you want it to be.
If you feel the need to race against others, maybe youd be better off joining an actual race.
Park run is an inclusive to all, whether you're walking round with a pram, or mix walking and jogging (my personal preference, when I actually go that is 😁) jog slowly round, or race round it.
Making out that it's a race when it's nothing of the sort I'd have thought would actually deter some thinking about joining

I participate in park run and am extremely disappointed that they allow trans people to run in the women’s category. To all those saying, how can you check the runner’s genitalia, are you insinuating that trans people don’t abide by the rules and would sneak in against the rules anyway?

In future I will continue to run but not in Parkrun until they can make it fair.

Making out that it's a race when it's nothing of the sort I'd have thought would actually deter some thinking about joining

...and pretending its not at all competitive and nothing like a race (even though it technically isnt) would also deter other people who do want a time.

The point is, is that its open and accessible to both groups of people - those who want a fast timed run competing against others (it was originally set up as a time trial) and those who want to walk round with a pram or a dog, maybe rehabilitating from illness or injury.