Yeah, and that evasiveness is why I think this is so significant.
Someone earlier used the analogy of kids at school having publicly ranked quiz results. There doesn't need to be a medal or prize (what a reductively literal interpretation of competition!) - the reward is quite obviously in the recognition. Similarly, as long as PR ranks runner's, the only possible reason for that is comparison and associated information and pride. And women, therefore, are getting a proportionately worse deal than men. That's discrimination, pure and simple.
For those who say this doesn't matter, that it's a small issue in the scheme of things, I actually have some sympathy. I do get that perspective - and I also kind of respect it as an honest position (unlike the exhausting it's-not-a-race crowd 😂). But I think the school analogy is helpful here, too, in explaining why I think it is an issue - and a big one, at that.
Imagine a school in which there are simple uniform rules which some students flout. And instead of the school asserting that these rules stand, and are important, they instead make accommodations for a minority of students in a cynically manipulative way ("Navy blue is close enough to black anyway, Chloe. Don't worry about it. Nathan! I know you have black trousers at home - go back and get them now! Our uniform is black, and we stand by that! (Chloe, off you pop to English now, love!)"
Now, you may or may not agree with this uniform rules - fine - but the denial that these rules exist, or that there's any argument for them existing in any case, even as the school claims to uphold them.
Just think about how subversive and disruptive to order in the school that is. Think about how that attitude will seep through to everyone and everything to undermine any conception of or faith in rules and order at all. It's a deeply, deeply dangerous, undemocratic approach to take.
And that's how I see Parkrun's approach to this issue, and women's sex-based rights.
If you want to argue that women deserve a different experience to men (and that is what they're getting - many women may not give a shit, but some obviously do, that they can't measure their relative times with the same accuracy: it's undeniable, and the voting shows it)... OK, fine, argue that. But be honest about it!
But this lack of honesty ("It's not a competition, it doesn't matter, what's the fuss? Parkrun say it's not, so it's not! No one cares anyway! It only affects a few people!") is all, to me, utterly corrosive. It degrades sex-based rights in exactly the same way that "Navy is the same as black for Chloe, but not for Nathan" corrodes rules, order and fairness in the school, by promoting a rules-for-thee-but-not-for-me and "anything goes attitude" to them.
How can we expect to win equal health care, and combat rape culture, for our daughters, as long as that attitude - that Chloe matters more than Nathan, but no one's prepared to admit it - is so deeply baked into our way of thinking that people will fight tooth and claw to deny any disadvantage to women for pages of this thread?