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.

And you could understand that When you write incorrect things people will respond back

Its not a race

www.parkrun.org.uk/maidstoneriverpark/news/2015/06/05/parkrun-a-run-not-a-race/

In a world in which

• men can be literal "biological" women
• an event with listed "winners" and places isn't a competition (silly!)
• and debating whether females have a right to their own word (and, here, their own sports categories) is often called "whipping up hate"...

there's really no hope of sensible discussion about balancing the competing rights of two different oppressed groups.

Orwell himself couldn't have dreamt up this one.

Except I’m not incorrect, you are.

Most voters in this thread disagree with you but you keep telling yourself you are right 🤣

And 2+2 = 5.

“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’"

Guess what- the views of a few tedious MN posters that turn up on any thread with even a whiff of a chance for anti trans rhetoric do not make something correct.

🤣🤣🤣🤣 still in denial
900 odd votes!!
😂😂😂

"It's not competitive" say all the park run promoters...
so... who cares what category people run in ... :-)

🤣🤣🤣🤣Still in denial. Park run call the shots and have made their views clear. A little MN tantrum isn’t going to get your way.

I'm sure Funtime will go away to reflect on their newfound realisation that a post on MN won't change an international org's policy.

They may, though, conclude that the voting proportion you deride, on such a well-known website, is likely to be clocked by someone in a massive org, and that these little drops can add up to persuasive grounds for change over time.

There's also the consolation that posters who are on the fence reading threads like this can weight up the arguments on either side, see the dismissal of sound rationale on a complex issue as "tantrums" and realise the paucity of the arguments against our position.

Another drop... and another... and another.

We can see its impact in real-time: today, the Olympics, tomorrow... er... PARK RUN!!! 💪😅

What's sad is how brutal this backlash must be for a community who would have been far better supported and protected had the claims for their rights been built on a more solid foundation than the bizarre accusations of "hatred" and "tantrums" we so often see here... 😔

Key point you seem to have forgot- the Olympics is a major competition, Park Run isn’t.

Heck, I'd not realised! Well, that's a bit embarrassing.

Alternatively...

1. Look up satire and bathos (seriously, though, do look up bathos - cool term more people should know 😃).

and

2. Consider the point I was making - and my consequent confidence that we'll get there with the smaller scale stuff, too, eventually: my Park Running colleagues are just as deserving of being able to gauge their running progress and success in the context of meaningful data from a cohesive demographic as Paula Radcliffe is.

(And then maybe rethink where the embarrassment really is).

Park run are under no obligation to publish data. Anybody can do it themselves.

We could start with a healthy discussion on the dangers of forcing people to validate the delusions of others in the name of 'kindness'.

A bit confused.

You seem to be suggesting that any runner could easily find out and publish the fastest time achieved in their run, to see how far behind the best female/male etc. they were (if, of course, we imagine we're discussing the kind of Parkrun I'm arguing for, where you can gauge your achievements meaningfully in the context of your sex)?

Or alternatively that no data should be published by Parkrun?

Indeed.

like men can already

Could you explain more fully?

Aha - sorry, Funtime. I kind of see what you're saying there. If I've understood correctly, yes, that's exactly it. And that's why I think we'll win this one. Men and women currently have a different experience of Park Run, with the men's experience clearly superior (more data, more satisfaction, AND a wider range of reasons for participating, from the don't-care-cos-it's-not-a-race-bods to the more competitive male participants are all catered for).

It feels quite clearly like discrimination on the basis of sex.

The coming court case, if they don't make changes soon (dunno if that's been mentioned upthread, but one's on the cards at last) looks promising for this.

Sorry, badly explained.

Currently I believe 280 ‘winners’ have been declared by parkrun in the female category that are male.

I think there are no women declaring to win the male category for obvious reasons

@Catiette

Exactly what you said.

Men can use their data supplied by parkrun in a meaningful way. Women can’t.

Yes - that too. All of it.

It feels cut and dried to me. Only a matter of time.

I do want trans runners to be accommodated too - but this shouldn't be at the expense of women (by which I mean the old-fashioned kind, from the good old days when we had a word of our own to make arguments for sex-based rights, that is).

Cross-posted. Basically... hard agree!

I hundred percent agree with you.

I said earlier i the thread, men who identify as anything other than men should be able to run and feel comfortable however they would like.

But whilst there are categories which can only be there to accommodate the different biologies they should be sex based.

And actually, if they still publish all results and omit sex as a category this would still discrimate against women for the same reasons.

If it was a fun event where sex doesn’t matter then that’s a different story.

If biological sex matters enough to segregate it matters enough to make it biologically accurate.

I care where I come in relation to other women, and I want to be sure they are actually biological women or it's meaningless.

Most women in my club care, and will be chuffed if they are first few in or top in age category.

The argument it's only a few men so what's the issue is a joke and it's not just about records either. 1 man takes any place he shouldn't and all the subsequent women are bumped down. 2 do and they are bumped down again from wherever he came in. This could easily be a couple of hundred women at one run negatively affected by the actions of 1 selfish man, and 1 woman losing out is too many.

I've volunteered at the end and they tie themselves in knots making sure they click in every runner and then give them the right number token - they come and do spot check as they are given out. And yet they make it a farce by allowing men in women's categories.

I would say, also, when someone breaks a course record they tend to take a photo of them and stick it on social media - you are not telling me they can't tell at that point whether they are looking at and talking to a women.

Be kind, let the men take all of your sporting achievements.
Be kind, let the men take jobs.
Be kind, let the man into your changing room and watch you undress.
Be kind, let the men into your domestic abuse refuge.
Be kind, let the man have sex with you.
Be kind, let the man strangle you.

Where does being kind to men end? When do women get to say no? Parkrun may just be a very small thing, but women should have the right to say no. Parkrun should pick a Saturday to question each and every real women that finishes as to whether transwomen should be in the female category and respect their views. Women shouldn’t always have to give up their rights to men, and it’s an exceedingly dangerous message to tell our daughter that they should.