parkrun defending their position

[Funtime2]

I used to be a parkrunner and do not understand how parkrun can defend their position of allowing trans identfying males into the female category.

I read that 280 published race winners in the female category are actually men identifying as women. How is this fair to women? Some women don’t care about this but some women do, just as some men take it as a race and care about the rankings and some men don’t

The other option of course is they could stop the timing, stop recording winners and records?

AIBU to genuinely not understand why parkrun claim not to be a race when they time the runners, publish times by category, rank times and runners, and have record holders by category.

I dont know about other areas, but 2 local park runs are uber competitive. I gave up going as I wanted to continue the progress my fat arse was making from Couch to 5k. I gave up after 2 months as I couldn't cope with the competitive nature of parkrun locally.

The pushing and shoving, the aggressive shouts all too much.

I would start going again if they stopped publishing times and everyone just got a private time for themselves as I think that would stop a lot of the arseholes.

It should be timed. For those of us who want to see our personal progress.

They can simply not publish it though. But the timing is nice.

On my Park Run registration I was younger. I was very secretive of my age and did not want people I know, knowing my true age so I simply entered a different one!

Its wrong.

Biological men should run in the male category because they are men and biological women in the female sex category.

Men shoving women aside is disgusting and cheating

Why are you assuming all of that 51% care what category trans people run under at Park Run?

In fairness she didn't say all women cared, just that 'a lot' of them do. It's one of those things where if you asked 'Do you agree that biological males should run as males in Parkrun' then the vast majority would say 'yes'. I would too. However to take that to mean that the vast majority actually care about this is well wide of the mark. Barely anybody cares, and if those that do are adamant that they are going to make Parkrun another battleground in the tiresome trans 'debate', and let perfection be the enemy of the good, then the whole thing could fall apart. Brilliant.

Barely anybody cares, and if those that do are adamant that they are going to make Parkrun another battleground in the tiresome trans 'debate', and let perfection be the enemy of the good, then the whole thing could fall apart. Brilliant.

This could apply equally to either side of the argument.

1) Barely anybody feels strongly that transwomen should BE FORBIDDEN FROM running as women and if those that do are adamant that they are going to make Parkrun another battleground in the tiresome trans 'debate', and let perfection be the enemy of the good, then the whole thing could fall apart. Brilliant.

2) Barely anybody feels strongly that transwomen should BE ALLOWED TO run as women and if those that do are adamant that they are going to make Parkrun another battleground in the tiresome trans 'debate', and let perfection be the enemy of the good, then the whole thing could fall apart. Brilliant.

It's interesting that 2) was ushered in under the radar despite only a very small minority agitating for this...

...Whereas 1) is seen as an absurd overreaction when... er... it's actually become a fairly significant topic for national debate, generating quite a few newspaper articles, comment pieces and MN threads.

There are some telling inconsistencies here that rather give the lie to the good ol' "No one cares, it's all a fuss over nothing and women requesting fairness in grassroots sport are most to blame for risking the whole thing 'falling apart'" line.

There's a particularly interesting assumption, too, in what "perfection" (implicitly posited as unreasonable or unattainable) and "good" (read: ethically superior) mean. Again, the post doesn't seem to acknowledge that there's a strong argument that "perfect" and "good" are the exact opposite of what they understand by this.

I think it's this unquestioning acceptance of certain values over others on the part of Parkrun, when this is actually a complex issue needing to be openly debated, that's particularly distressing to some of the women challenging the org. There's at worst a naivety to it, and at worst a dishonesty. I think the former's evident in some posts here. I'd say Parkrun's all about the latter. They know that this is a difficult issue, just as well as they know that publishing "winners" in distinct "categories" while saying it's not competitive and the categories are meaninglessly subjective reaches a homersimpson-esque level of disingenuous stupidity.

(As, while I'm at it, does this remarkable concern with the impossibility of "policing" it... Come back and sa this when we've found a way to "police" obedience to all school rules, all traffic violations, the convention of queuing and every tiny little instance of chucking-a-crisp-packet-on-the-pavement without any exception, ever, and I may see some sense to it - until then, though, in saying this you may as well be arguing for giving up all rules and behavioural conventions on the basis that "some people will always get away with it regardless").

Sorry, usually a bit less Grrrr! Bad mood. I kind of can see the policing thing - I just think that sometimes (often?) it's not said out of concern for stressed organisers but rather as a somewhat cynical ploy to uphold the status quo without discussion. I really can't see the non-a-competition and women-are-blatantly-the-only-possible-ones-at-fault-for-creating-this-whole-problem, though. They just seem rather... unconvincing, in the face of the evidence.

Yep!

Jesus, I just mean that while it would be brilliant if a policy of 'all biological males must run as males' could be rigorously policed, given the nature of what Parkrun is and how it exists at all it clearly can't. And it's better to have the actual imperfect Parkrun than not have the perfect one we'd like. I suppose I can see a place for pragmatism amongst the philosophy, but I'm prepared for some more of the latter.

So why put sex categories and age categories at all then?

It’s not a competition so nobody can cheat. If posters want to turn it into a competition they need to start their own and as for shoving women aside. 🙄

So why do they announce winners in categories?

They do not offer prizes or medals, it is not a competition, its a weekly, community-driven event designed for participation rather than competition.

stating a winner 🥇 s the very definition of competition.

what on earth are you talking about

I suggest you look up the definition of competition.

I suggest you look up the park run site . What prizes and medals do they give out? They state nobody comes last.

They also state:-

We prohibit the registration of names which include rude, offensive, political and/or inappropriate language, which may incite and/or reference any kind of violence and/or hate towards others, contain sexual connotations and/or bring parkrun into disrepute, and our decision is final.

So give over with your attempts to whip up trans hate and spoil a community inclusive event. Don’t like it- start your own.

Arcade gaming reminds me of parkrun in its ability to be for everyone. Some people game and just have fun, might not even know their score. others game and try and get to a higher score/level each time they play and other people want to win, be top of the table.

It’s for everyone, it’s competitive for some but no medals or trophies.

Why are you obsessed with medals 😂

Why are you obsessed with making a problem that isn’t there?😂

Just because it doesn’t affect you doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

i mean look at how many people agree with me on the vote on this thread.

perhaps you should try and understand others views. Open your mind

Winning is a prize. They don't need to hand out medals for it to still be (for many) a competition. If you were to survey Parkrun participants and ask them whether they'd be happy to do away with rankings and times, the majority would decline. I wonder why? I'm a fairly mediocre runner (I spend more time lifting weights in the gym) and whilst I really appreciate the community spiritedness of Parkrun, I also value highly its competitive element and the ways in which it promotes personal development, resilience etc. I think it would be a great shame if the element of competition were to disappear, but competition must be considered fair and it can't be if some of the competitors are misrepresenting themselves by sex.

Maybe you should try and understand that if you start a thread on AIBU people aren’t going to agree with you?

Yes this is the point. It's a conduit to elite competition - not just for youngsters but also to Masters events where you can represent England or your home nation.

BUT (and it's a massive one) this whole thread is premised on the SC judgment. Which only applies to Great Britain. Some other countries have much more liberal self-ID laws. parkrun is a global organisation and needs a model which works everywhere.

I think if this goes as far as the courts, parkrun will simply remove the public results tables. They must have spent quite a lot on the parkrun app but they might cut their losses (I have the alternative parkrace app which uses the parkrun API but they could cut that off). So you would just get an email with your time and age grading.