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.

Well yes, but they like to claim they're women now.
Even though they're still men.

You are missing my point, what is required is a more nuanced law itself because the current laws need to be more nuanced given the sc ruling, by adding sub categories for trans men and trans women it would allow organisations who choose to do so to be trans inclusive if they choose to do so. We should recognise that trans people exist and they organisations can choose themselves whether they want to segregate based on biological sex or not and for both positions to be valid and legal. We should accept that both positions should be permissable by law whereas the sc ruling has now made inclusivity illegal because of this lack of legal nuance.

I may be misremembering this, but didn't park run briefly stop recording / posting rankings when this first blew up a few years ago? But the policy was swiftly reversed because, even though it's definitely not a competition, a lot of men objected to this. And of course it wouldn't do at all to upset the men. Makes me so angry.

No, you are the one missing the actual point. Transwomen don't want their own categories, they say it 'others' them. And they will refuse to register in the category anyway. They ONLY want the female one. We know this when a trans/open category was created for swimming. Not one trans person registered for that category. What you are suggesting is a non-starter. There is no point if they don't get validation of being the female winner. Lol forget the 'sub category', they will not ever register in the trans category, let alone trans sub category!

Laws since the SC ruling need to be less nuanced and much more stricter and clear cut. In fact, it is 'nuanced', wishywashy rules that are causing the confusion and problem.

I wish the EHRC would pull its collective finger out instead of kicking the can down the road with various tales.

I have no idea about the inns & outs but if you are taking part in sports it's gonna be competitive.
As someone once said: you take part to try it out, you enjoy it and then you want to get better at it & win. And this can be big (first place) or small (PB) or tiny (not stopping) ...

Could they ask for sex and gender identity, both questions optional. Produce rankings based on both.

Trust people to answer honestly and if someone is found not to be, deal with it in the same way as they would for someone suspected of lying about their age?

WTF?

the answer?
Is to drop the gender/sex category.

And / or to stop taking government money to increase women's participation in sports.

I just stopped going.

A few of the women meet up at a different location now to run.

I know there is no point arguing with you due to your extremist views, but again you misrepresent my position. I'm talking about groups ability to get together and organise, not about categorise.
Currently it's impossible to have a group that includes biological and trans women even though a huge number wasn't too because the pc is gender reassignment and not trans women or men. We have seen this numerous times nationwide.
Personally I believe that groups should be allowed to define their own membership either way and that should be respected by all, but the law now no longer permits that.

Well if a 20 year old turned up claiming to be 60 there might be some questions….

Parkrun is only a 'fun run' or 'not competitive' to some runners. But it is actually very important to young athletes, and young female athletes should have the same right to fair competition as young male athletes. Currently, with Parkrun, they don't.
A couple of reasons why Parkrun is important and why some of the snarky remarks (like 'I'm not 8') fail to understand the issue:
It is free, so if you are a good runner, but your parents are too poor or based too rurally etc to enable you to join a club, there is a chance of doing Parkrun, to practice, to get rankings, to get noticed.

• Many areas use Parkrun as a way of selecting their teams for races, for example the London mini marathon. Girls have to be allowed the same opportunities as boys. Of course it can't be policed. But we don't say 'oh I can't police my front door at all times so I won't bother locking it'. You do what you can and trust that most people won't burgle your house or cheat at Parkrun.

Some people take their ParkRun times ridiculously insanely seriously though. Unfortunately we have a big run near us and it's got a reputation as being a very fast (and flat) course and it attracts an unfortunate bunch of (99% male in this group) Strava-Louts who behave like absolute dickheads and have managed to render the local park essentially a no-go area for anyone other than the runners during those times on a weekend - and I don't care how much the run director gives the "respect other park users" speech cos this lot don't listen to it.

It seems to be like their entire source of self-esteem in life and they'd do ANYTHING to get one place up the leaderboard in a category.

Nowt at all against the run around the park, keeping to one half of the paths and not running over little old ladies walking their dogs (or knocking toddlers off bikes then jumping over the bike to keep on their stride which is what they did to DD1 on one occasion), park-run... plenty against the dickhead crowd who drive stupid distances to get to a fast course so they can look good on their socials.

So you agree women should be able to meet and form groups without having to include men? Awesome!! Can you tell that to all the TRA insisting and protesting. They even got a support group for women shut down as it was female only.

'Extremist views'? And what views are they? That sport should be fair (and safe) for women? If that is 'extremist' to you then you are telling on yourself.

The law most certainly does permit it. The law says it is not compulsory to have single sex categories (or spaces); but if they are listed by sex, then it must be by sex.

Maybe you should actually read the SC ruling before attacking me out of turn.

a bit confused. What is extremest about BlackCat's views?

That humans can't change sex? that men are not women? how is that extremist?

@Bobbingtons

For non sports, i think in practice you can have a group for women plus trans women.

Because you can have a group for women and a group for trans women and the two groups can do everything together.

It’s different for charities, like WI and Girl Guides, where you need to restrict to women only.

I have had to verify my ID plenty of times using facial recognition and my passport. It incant be that difficult to do that via a phone or computer app. 3 categories, M/F/general. If you want to be in the M or F category you have to get verified but anyone who doesn’t want to isn’t forced but they just sit in the general category. Simple, everyone happy. No policing on the day. Just guarantees that the M/F categories are based on sex but no one is forced into declaring.

The Supreme Court judgment should be complied with. Even though it should never have been necessary and at least two of the former Prime Ministers could have clarified the law if they cared.

Does it even matter if it is policed?
The message they send out at the moment is: women, you can only enjoy this as a fun run. Men you can fun run or use it competitively.
If they stood their ground on sex rather than gender, then people would accept it, and feel like they were cheating if the didn’t follow the rule.
Currently they are being encouraged to do what they want.
The message matters.

Yawn. 🥱 it is a non issue. Get down off your high horse.

There are four options when your register. It is under ‘gender’ and they are male, female, another gender identity or prefer not to say.

This does imply that you are recording your gender identity rather than your sex so transpeople are not breaking any rules when they go with their gender identity as things currently stand. The last two option remove the category stats for those people and so there is already an option not to be competing against women as a trans woman.

It the options were labelled sex and there was male, female or prefer not to say then it would be more relevant to running categories.

The problem with removing all age and sex data is that only young men would have any chance of being at the top of the only league that would be left which is completely open. That is not very fair on talented women or anyone older or younger who could not see how they were doing compared to their peers.

Yes, but equally I believe that is a group wants to allow women and trans women to join they should be allowed to do so which is the mainstream 'TRA' position. Currently this has been made illegal under equality law. Do you agree that both positions should be seen as mutually valid under law

@RunningAndSinging Re: currently not breaking any rules - yes thats what people are saying, the rules as they stand are unfair and should be changed.