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.

What's the prize money for winning a park run?

It's many years since i did parkrun but I wasn't aware they post records and winners, we got sent our time over text but no-one showed off about it. I also wasn't aware there were catgories, everyone ran together.

It doesn’t need to be policed. As far as I’m aware trans people wouldn't cheat the rules in more than anyone else. Would they?

Don't be so sure. They are already cheating by claiming to be women when they are actually men.

There's no way they can stop a man from registering as a woman.

They could make people go back and re-register as their biological sex but they cant force compliance. I'd prefer it to be accurate. However, say I'm the 7th woman in my age category I'd become the 6th. It doesn't make a lot of difference to me.

Thing is it would cause lots of bad feeling amongst the mainly younger and "inclusive" crowd of park runners. It's just not worth it for slightly more accuracy.

The accolade of being the fastest female park runner is going to have the shine taken off it if you're actually male bodied. Most people will think it even if they don't say it. I feel badly for the women who have the accolade taken off them.

I honestly dont see why they cant haave their own category and their own records.

They don't want their own category. They can't keep up with the other men so they want to look good by cheating into the female category.

Yes. It's Aberystwyth as I recall.

There's no prize. Its just for fun. The only impact is that someone will be told on their email that they are the fastest woman or fastest woman in their age category so by adding men to this mix then it is taking the credit away from a woman.

Record holder

No need to police it.. it should be on a trust basis..

When it became clear that people were self identifying into the female category ParkRun choose to allow this and to restate their rules and remove some of the reporting which separated men and women.

They choose to prioritise a very small number of men who identity as women over women and everytime they are challenged on this, they defend this position.

There are plenty of females on the senior leadership team and the board of trustees.

I don't think I would lose any sleep over not being told by e-mail that I'm the fastest runner in my age category (if that was factually correct). I'm not 8 years old.

Yes - scroll down here
https://www.parkrun.org.uk/aberystwyth/news/2023/04/

This - it's a non competitive run in the park to go for a bit of exercise. You can even jog round/walk round if you like.
Do people even know what Park Run is?! There are no trophies or prizes. 😕

Why would that accolade lose its shine? I mean, you’d know everyone would think you were a cheating knobhead, but surely you’d have known that when you set out to cheat, so you’d be ok with that. What if you were second to some cheating man when really you should have been first? What is the point of holding female records if they’re held by cheating men? .

I don't think there are any trophies or prizes as it's not a race.

Some people treat it as a fun run. Some people take it seriously and want to keep improving their stats.

It takes the ambition and determination away for women.

If only biological women are running, there's a goal there to push yourself to be to be one the fastest women in your age band.

Due to biology, biological men tend to be faster runners than women, hence we have sex based categories.

As they allow biological men to run as women, it takes away the goal for women to achieve a leader board place as they're less likely to achieve a fastest spot due to men taking their accolades.

What do you propose the gender/sex question is though? Given trans people believe they are women and female, they won’t think they’re cheating by answering the question that way.

Yeah, they don’t do this either. Causes all sorts of problems in A&E 🤦🏻

Everyone runs together but they do post run times, here’s an example, (I’ve cut through the names but you get the idea).

Not everyone cares but some people do get motivated to see where they sit within their category. It’s not showing off but for some people they care. So the categories should be accurate for women. Men get to see where they sit because men are around 10-12% faster than women at elite level (and there is more of a gap at grass routes) so trans men in their categroy do not skew the results. Quite the point actually

I’m sure today’s London Marathon winner Sebastian Sawe won’t be accused of showing off with his sub 2 hour marathon time. Well done him!

But some people do care about positions.
Otherwise park run would just publish times and nothing else.
Or they wouldn't even do that and just let people record their own time.

In fairness, this might be why they allow it. If this was the risk I’m pretty sure the volunteer pool would dwindle pretty rapidly and the whole thing would shut down

But they have

parkrun Age categories = state your age.
parkrun sex categories = state how you feel.

parkrun age categories = fair competition and data collecting
parkrun sex categories = unfairness to women and inaccurate data collecting

Not consistent is it?

No one is asking for al the categories to be policed.

They are asking for them to be fair and consistent.

Parkrun senior leadership and the trustees are an unpleasant bunch. Yes, I run and volunteer all the time.

They've known about Jeska for years and won't even change his category over to the men's.

Park runs are non-competitive events staffed by volunteers. They can publish whatever guidelines they like about registering truthfully with your sex and age, but they can’t monitor compliance with them. You just have to treat Park runs as competing against yourself and bettering your own time.

Belittling other people is not kind or inclusive to other people’s motivation.

Exactly, if you're after a competitive race you'd be better off joining a marathon, a competition or whatever instead of expecting everyone else to treat it as a competition as well.
When I've done it in the past I look my time up and try and beat my personal best each time. Not try and turn it into a race with the others running.