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.

But @Funtime2you don’t have to prove your age? They do t ask for your passport or anything?

so how do you know the age category is any more accurate?

They don't want it. We've tried. They only get validation by being in the female category and being listed on the official Parkrun site as female and the fastest female.

They've never wanted their category, they claim it 'others' them, which is bs. They only want validation. Nothing else.

Because if someone lies about their age they are breaking the rules.

Currently it’s perfectly fine to register as a woman if you are a man.

Come on, you must be able to see the difference.

We don’t abolish all rules because some people break them.

Then why bother with a parkrun - just go for a run by yourself. Which ones again bypasses the whole encouragement and group community feel. Having timed events give people (who are not always motivated club runners) but people new to the sport) that boost to turn up and try… without the fear of being last, slow or joining a competitive event.

I'm not convinced that telling Orgs (especially when they receive public funding) that they can break the law if they fancy it, is, necessarily, a workable solution.

If parkrun have categories and they publish in any way records within those categories, it is being run as a competition.

If they only sent people their own time and then never recognised records or categories, that would be a non-competitive event. But parkrun do not do this and this has been pointed out to them many times. There are male people who hold records for female people on 20-30 different courses.

parkrun have made it a competitive event while denying that it is a competitive event.

exactly.

You have just hit the nail on the head.

Some people like to see their times, even slow runners, amongst other reasons they can see how they compare to others their age and sex.

Not everyone wants this but the element of competition is the very point of timings. For some that is competing with themselves and other people like to compare to others.

It’s motivating.

Or the other option is if you don't like it don't go?
It is their event at the end of the day. They don't owe you anything.

Why can't there be a third, open, category which people can enter irrespective of gender identity?

You don't run in categories though. You all start at the same time and all together. If people want to get all competitive, that's on them.
It's not what Park Run's about and they've never claimed to be a race.

If that's the case, then males can register in the correct male category then.

Can't they? So what's the fuss?

I wrote this earlier, you may have missed this.

It’s a simple solution, it’s inclusive but apparently parkrun prefer to have men win, so far, 280 women’s parkrun events.

I propose they ask this when registering

name
age
sex at birth

(we ask for your age and sex at birth to ensure our categories are both fair and meaningful. If you would prefer not to state your sex at birth or your age, please leave the box blank and we will not include your times within a category but just alongside your name).

Everyone's welcome at parkrun

Yes, and so are you.
You're being disingenuous.

They do print categories….that is why people are upset.

They know they're not female, as female is a sex and even they admit they know they don't change sex (just 'gender'). And Parkrun registers by sex, so they know they are already lying and cheating.

No, I’m not.

I genuinely think if the rules were clear and the form was as I suggested I think trans identifying men would, in the main, adhere to the rules.

They are the same as everyone else, most would adhere to the rules and few wouldn’t. What are you suggesting?

Jakers here at our local run every Sunday junior and adult it's about improving your own time which living on the coast is affected by the weather. Running in windy wet weather or a nice spring day, different kettle of fish.

No-one gets aerated about it.

sex at birth

Unfortunately transwomen would lie about that too.

I propose simple it be a fun run with not categories, no ages, no sexes, no data taken. NOTHING taken at all. Anyone and everyone of any age and any sex/gender enter and no timings taken, all people are responsible for taking their own timings on their wrist watch, phone or stopwatch themselves.

That I think, is really the only fair and workable solution there can possibly ever be.

It really makes no sense - if it doesn't matter, then why are they (trans identifying men) registering themselves as female when they know they aren't? If it does matter, then why are Parkrun allowing those men to do this?

I mean, I think we all know the answer is "Because it only matters when men are negatively affected".

They are the same as everyone else, most would adhere to the rules and few wouldn’t. What are you suggesting?

I'm suggesting that a great many transwomen would object to being told to state their biological sex, because they believe they've actually changed sex.
They don't like being told that this is impossible.

Well they need to know their sex for all sorts of reasons.

It affects it because they list timings and placings publicly on Parkrun's own site. Therefore it is by de facto a competition. And a male being publicly declared the fastest is cheating women. I think most fair-minded people can understand this.

If it's 'nOt a CoMpeTitiOn' then remove all publicly posting rankings and timings! You can't have it both ways. That will remove incentive for males to claim to be female and cheat.

Then they need to remove the categories and they need to not note who has the course records.

The fact that they do this makes any claim of theirs that parkrun is not competitive a falsehood.

Are you unreasonable for expecting Parkrun to not allow Trans runners to identify as women? No!

However as others have pointed out I am not sure how they would police this as there is not much scrutiny when you sign up. Doesn't mean they shouldn't try - maybe by just making a blatant statement on their website that people should register by their sex at birth would be a start.

Are you being unreasonable by expecting them to stop timing and ranking people - Very much Yes!

Yeah I know, its a run not a race - but its a bit of a race as well. A race against yourself, against your friends or acquaintances. I would say that the vast majority of Park runners get a lot of fun and interest in terms of their own health and fitness from being timed and ranked. Much of the chat post race run is about the stats and how people are improving or not with some friendly competition thrown in.

Getting rid of the timing and rankings would be the worst of all possible worlds and would destroy Parkrun and make it pretty pointless. I might as well run around the park on my own.

99.9999999% of transwomen know they haven't actually changed sex, and they tell us this often enough. Only the incredibly batshit deranged actually believe they've actually changed sex, and are ostracised by all other trans people.