Women's Park Run Record smashed to smithereens

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The way to beat records for men to self ID and run as a female. Straight into the record books and stand aside females whilst man in dress sets the record. Is nothing safe from men anymore?

Was a married man until just 4 years ago.

Lol! Your principles have created this issue, so you had better own the equitable response to it.

But you can't think of a fair resolution, so you just shrug and hope for someone else to find a solution. Pathetic.

@SamanthaCaine - yes, I realise that trying to enforce people registering according to their sex is probably something that Parkrun would be unable or unwilling to do. I still think they should make a statement saying that people should register by sex though.

The stupid smug grin on her face.She's won nothing at all.

you dont really compete against other people so much, outside the top 10. But you do compete against the average for you age and class, and your age related grading, which is being distorted beyond all vestige of usefulness - denying all women the opportunity to assess themselves, ever.

Sadly that is patently obvious to most of us but needs to be handled delicately for the trans community.

I thought they had to be in transition for longer than 18mths before they could have sex change presume they have had no ops in that time.

Sadly that is patently obvious to most of us but needs to be handled delicately for the trans community.

There's a limit to how delicately you can say "You are a man. You must register as a man. This is a running event. You use your (male) legs, muscles and cardiovascular system to run, not your feelings about identity'.

@Fairislefandango - that's too logical for all this nonsensical behaviour.

Fairislefandango

There's a limit to how delicately you can say "You are a man. You must register as a man. This is a running event. You use your (male) legs, muscles and cardiovascular system to run, not your feelings about identity'.

Beautifully concise. Males bodies win. Feelings have nothing to do with it.

I would love that.

Well yes, but if you're trans then I suspect that you already have an idea of which gender you believe yourself to be. The key word is 'believe'.

Parkrun give options. Male, female, other, prefer not to say. They could just use the words 'biological sex' but would upset a proportion of society. I'm not saying which is right or wrong but just that it's not an easy stance for Parkrun to take. Hence my 'sensitive' comment.

And yet there are multiple women who are banned from taking part in certain races because their natural testosterone levels are too high.

It probably doesn’t affect parkruns but it still seems unfair that many women can’t compete, yet men dressed as women are winning trophies.

Since these men are unlikely to record themselves as male, or even in some cases as belonging in an open category, it wouldn’t be difficult for parkrun to introduce a transwoman category alongside the biological woman category.

I realise we would still be trusting people not to lie, but it would make the intent clear and make it harder for anyone to argue, as someone did upthread, that it could be that some of these males just innocently want to be recorded as being women and just haven’t even considered (from their position of male privilege presumably) that their presence in the women’s run has a negative effect on those who belong in that category.

If it were that important, runners would do something else. Noone takes parkrun seriously and the self registration with no policing tells you all you need to know

That isn't an argument because it doesn't affect men - they can still have their competition. This issue has a disproportionate impact on women.

The issue is if you have a transwoman category you effectively give men a second bite of the cherry. However maybe it's the least worst option.

I wonder if some people want to "out" themselves as transwomen (and therefore don't want to compete in a transwoman or an open category)? Although it's blindingly obvious in 99% of cases; transmen "pass" somewhat better.

But even so the needs of a few do not outweigh fairness to the many.

Then he shouldn't have accepted the medal

There is no such thing as a 'sex change'

You will always be the biological sex you were born, no matter what surgery you have, what clothes you wear and how you do you hair.

Thought some got breast implants and other bits changed. Not meaning to offend anyone and apologise if I have/had . I am just clueless on this.

Why not men and women stop running, just decide they aren't going to do it. I don't do it but if I did I'd stop the second a man pretended to be a women man and took the record from an actual woman and DH would go the same. Just boycott it, maybe then they'll actually take notice and realise what they're allowing to happen to stop,

It would be testosterone levels that would affect performance rather than whether or not any surgery has been done. Performance does decline with hormone treatment in trans women but not by enough to offset the effects of having been through male puberty.

If there were prizes, then obviously there shouldn’t be extra prize categories other than male (or open) or female, but my understanding is that there are no prizes here. If this is all about accurately recording the times of people in various categories so they can compare themselves and people are placing themselves in the wrong category because they object to the one they ought to be in, then a potential alternative is to give them a category they cannot state they don’t belong in.

If the other alternatives on offer are

1. Continue as now (possibly with a name change to “open”) but trust that somehow social disapproval will stop these men inserting themselves into a category that they insist they belong in

or

2. Stop recording sex, thus allowing men to compare times, while women no longer can

then I’d prefer to try something different. I know some will probably think it’s appeasement, but given that nobody is policing which group people put themselves in, it seems like a pragmatic approach.

I guess another wording would be to ask for sex as recorded at birth, but that would probably cause more furore (and perhaps be seen as less forgiving by sympathetic people) than giving a separate category.

We've seen it a few times on this board - 'oh. I didn't know that. I haven't read about it in the Guardian'.

Without any consideration of the fact that the Guardian are either refusing to cover things or if they do, are doing an appalling job of it (the WiSpa incident as an example)

Why not men and women stop running, just decide they aren't going to do it. I don't do it but if I did I'd stop the second a man pretended to be a women man and took the record from an actual woman and DH would go the same. Just boycott it, maybe then they'll actually take notice and realise what they're allowing to happen to stop.

The problem is, even if Parkrun say that people should register by sex, there is no obvious way of enforcing it.

The suggestion is that
parkrun changes it to sex rather than gender and that if a TW breaks a female record this can be flagged to head office for them to follow up.

No females are banned because their natural testosterone is too high.

Male people with DSDs have been banned from women’s events at certain events. These are not female people.