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.

I see. Thanks for clarifying.

Parkrun is many different things to many different people though. For YOU it’s a community cohesion event. For others who are trying to improve their running, it’s a weekly time trial (like it was originally meant to be!).

They can change their ethos and say it’s a community group where they want to promote trans rights while shafting women’s rights, but currently they are taking public money and need to follow the fucking law.

As for the other thread, unless you live in the outer Hebrides there are endless different parkrun’s you can do. A runner wanting a good time will go to one where they don’t have to spend endless laps tripping over people - as they should. The people shoving people around are idiots.

And yet, the law is clear. It is irrelevant that some people believe it to be a social even.

If parkrun removes sex categories altogether they might be able to not have to follow the EA2010.

we keep being told that trans people are a tiny proportion ( iirc <1%) of the population.

Women are 51% of the population.

Parkrun receive government money to increase women's participation in sports.

So. Why are Parkrun so keen to a) appease <1% of the population and piss off a lot of the 51%?? and b) accept money to not do what they are supposed to do?

They are utter twats and until they stop pretending it's not a competition they can do one.

Just mail everyone their times, and have done with it. No tables, no records, no 1st man etc etc....

It'd be interesting to know how many people on here have actually ever been to a Park Run and participated.

There is absolutely zero need to take sex at birth.

sorry but are you 12 because you are being ridiculous and childish.

Your posts are beyond transphobic. I don’t think given the actual proportion of transgender people in the UK, that the amount of transgender people partaking is actually very small. Again I will reiterate, fun community event.

how can you say everyone is welcome when you clearly are not welcoming to the trans community

something I like to say on here a lot, comparison is the thief of all joy. Join a running club if you want to be competitive

read the thread before comment

Still not answered why parkrun have rankings and winners in catgories then?

Fingers in your ears lalalala!

Transphobic lalalala!!

There is EVERY need to take biological sex if you want to categorise male and female. It’s the law. Any transperson who cannot accept their sex at birth needs therapy.

Why are you so keen to get women to bin their rights? I am proud to come from an era where ‘no means no. It’s a woman’s right to refuse’. It’s a message we should be teaching all of our daughters.

Agreed and park run know that which is why they maintain ‘it’s just a fun run’ but keep the timings despite knowing the timings are what make it a race. .

I have, along with partner, DC, in-laws, friends and neighbours. It's been particularly important to both my DD and a few of her friends as our borough and others use it as a way of choosing individuals for running events. It's also been great for widening participation to kids who may not be able to join athletics clubs. It's especially important for girls who leave sport in droves in their teens....So it's very inclusive.

@RunningAndSinging ’the categories are fairer by sex’ - should say ‘fair’. A mixed sex ‘women’s’ category is unfair.

If scouts and marathons are using published Park Run data to identify fast girls and women to offer places to, fairness is even more important.

’Transpeople would not feel welcome with a change in the rules’ [to have a women’s category]. Why would they not? Unless they’re cheats, that is.

Another poster suggests that there are ‘millions’ of alternative, single sex events. There are not many for 5K, especially for those of us who aren’t fast. Cost is £25 upwards, excluding transport.

why should boys and men of all running abilities get a free, men’s weekly event when girls and women get a mixed sex one or have to book in advance, travel much further and pay?

Can't they buy a wristwatch for themselves? Or a smartphone?

We seem to be talking at cross purposes here, I would say that GG/WI and the groups you are suggesting (provided there are more than 25 people) would all be classified as associations and be able to restrict membership based on a single PC. You’ve said
”There are specific provisions in the Equality Act for sports and single-sex provision. I am talking about associations”

From what I’ve read

“It does not, however, prevent associations restricting their membership to people who share a protected characteristic (see Schedule 16)”

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/notes/division/3/7#:~:text=Members%20and%20associates-,Effect,characteristic%20covered%20by%20this%20Part.

“SCHEDULE 16
Associations: exceptions
Single characteristic associations
1(1)An association does not contravene section 101(1) by restricting membership to persons who share a protected characteristic.
(2)An association that restricts membership to persons who share a protected characteristic does not breach section 101(3) by restricting the access by associates to a benefit, facility or service to such persons as share the characteristic.”

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/schedule/16

Could you pinpoint the part which shows that what you’ve said is correct, please,
The part where you’ve said:

“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.”

They could but parkrun is defined as a free weekly timed event. That is what it is at its core. If it wasn’t timed people would just do their own run and time themselves. We would lose so much as a society. There are people who don’t speak to anyone else from one Saturday to the next but come to parkrun and are part of something.

Whatever leglislation is put into place parkrun can’t control how people decide to register.

we need to be careful not to let this one issue (which is a nightmare to try to implement) take away from all the good Parkrun has done getting people active

The outcome of this is likely to be parkrun not publishing separate times for men and women.
So women will lose the chance to rank themselves against each other anyway.

The outcome of taking Guides and Women's Institute to court has been groups closing. So women only spaces are being eroded.

The outcome of banning transwomen from women's toilets will be more unisex facilities. Which most women hate.

All unintended consequences which make life worse for women.

Some people will think this is worth it.

I’m a regular Parkrunner and personally wish they’d knock all this on the head by scrapping the categories completely, scrapping the published results and just sending everyone their own personal time as they already do. Then people could continue to track their own progress, continue to chase their own PB, do the challenges if that’s their thing, but fair for all.

Sadly I regularly have Men tell me that it’s not a race [for Women] so the categories don’t matter, but insist we still need them [so they can swing their dicks about by beating their mates, presumably].

I saw it referred to on Twitter as Schrodingers Parkrun, which sums it up!

’Transpeople would not feel welcome with a change in the rules’ [to have a women’s category]. Why would they not? Unless they’re cheats, that is..

They would feel ‘othered’. I can’t speak for trans people really - especially as I do not believe in gender ideology so I can’t really answer the why but you know as well as I do that it would not go down well with a significant number of people who do believe in it.

I know lots of people here feel that that doesn’t matter because they are wrong, the law is not on their side and they are trying to cheat but a lot of people don’t see it like that at all. They would see parkrun as giving in to a witch-hunting hate group. It would make them feel unwelcome.

The other problem is if you do change the rules and someone is suspected of breaking them what happens then? I don’t think anything much would happen now if someone inflated their age. I wouldn’t expect volunteers to challenge people on this. You would have no way of knowing how people had registered before the results came out. It would all have to go via HQ but could turn into masculine looking women being falsely accused and having to prove their birth sex somehow. No one would want that.

If women were the faster sex, there is no way that men would put up with them identifying into the men’s timings.

To me, it really is that straight forward. So why are we putting up with it?

It would be sad if trans people with an inability to be honest resulted in results no longer being published, but if women aren’t allowed to have accurate results I can’t see why men should.

Men.wil still have accurate results because they will take the higher places. In fact, their results will look better as they are compared with the whole run, not just the male runners. It will be women who lose their rankings.

‘this one issue’

Two issues:

1. unfair treatment of women (no women’s category when there remains a men’s one).
2. Apparent tolerance of an unfair ‘women’s’ record standing for five years, run by a male, convicted attempted murderer, with his crime committed reportedly motivated by ‘this one issue’

What ‘witch hunting hate group’ do you refer to @RunningAndSinging - anti women ‘activists’?

Not if the results aren’t published.

There are extremes on both side for sure and purity spirals.