Trans athletes in amateur events

[DitherDother]

It's all over the news today and of course a man shouldn't be able to hold a women's record or win a women's race, but in an amateur event, organised by volunteers (like parkrun or the smalll trail race my club organised last night) how do you avoid it? We don't ask anyone to prove their sex, if someone who was quite obviously male, with a male name, male clothes and a beard said he was female on the form (deliberately or by mistake) that's what the record would show. Probably no one would even notice.

I understand the disquiet about it, but what do people think can be done?

Obvious males are males and should be marked as males.

All males should be marked as male regardless of their 'feels'.

Of course they should, but who's going to "mark" them when they've done their own entries, usually online?

Can it be amended manually? I don't know. It's a bloody disgrace.

A transwoman cyclist is smashing all the leader boards on Strava (an app for running/cycling etc to track performance etc) and it is really frustration me, as petty as it sounds because it's JUST a training tool.

Same person is beating women in pro-am cycling events too.

On what basis though?

I did the entries for our race last night. There's a woman with a very masculine appearance, who enters under a woman's name. I don't know and she beats me regularly I suspect she's male, but if she tells me she's a woman, on what basis/ evidence could I the records?

When my DDs started athletics in Australia we had to bring their birth certificates. They were 5 and 7.

You have a person who works for the event go up to them and say, "females only in this event", and they get evicted. Simples. If they get aggressive (which they ALWAYS DO), tough. Feels don't change biology.

I suspect she's male, but if she tells me she's a woman, on what basis/ evidence could I the records?

I can see it is a problem and I don’t know the answer.

Yeah agree it is a problem but I don't know the solution. I just hate it though

These local events don't work like that though. Men and women of all ages run in the same races and the results are sorted according to how people entered. You could "win" your category by lying about your age too, if you were so inclined.

All the people who "work" for the event will be volunteers.

Yeah it’s cheating and it’s annoying. But what can be done?

Presumably someone could get an age grade record too by lying about their age. Maybe we should all try that just to make a point. (I don’t think I could though - I’d feel too guilty about it. Especially as parkrun is a community event run by volunteers.)

Doesn’t help if a TW has a GRC and a birth certificate that now shows them as female.

World Athletics and World Swimming have acknowledged that males cannot compete in female categories due to retained male advantage at elite level - this needs to be extended to grass roots levels (as British Triathlon has done).

Nobody would be excluded - TW can compete in the male / open category and TM can compete as female if not on androgens and in the male / open category either way.

The problem is that it is impossible to enforce.
You could make the rules abundantly clear that it is organised by biological sex. Then if people do mark themselves as the wrong sex, it is clear that they are cheating.
Can't prove it or stop it but it makes it psychologically more difficult.

It pisses me off though. I love running. I am sometimes first female at parkrun. I'm sometimes not. But damn right I'm going to be pissed off to come second to a male who says he is a woman

You start by deciding on the rules and publicising them.

Most people are not cheats and pay attention to the rules. This stuff only seriously kicked off when the powers that be changed the rules.

Yes there might be people who break the rules, and there's not a lot you can do about that in these circumstances, but most people don't.

It’s would help if sports organisations asked for sex not gender.

I don't think anyone could be stopped from running, but maybe, to qualify for the award or recognition of a record, they have to provide a birth certificate as proof that they are who they say they are. If this was a blanket policy, applied to every single person who beat a record, there would be no discrimination that I can see.

@PosiePerkinPootleFlump aargh I’m jealous! The one and only time I was first female at parkrun was one of the best days of my life, up there with my wedding and the birth of my 3 kids. I’m working damn hard at getting my pre children speed back now that my youngest is 3, and my “gender” position matters to me.

I don't think the events at the 'amateur' level can do anything about it.

If you want to enforce the rules for the higher levels of competition, which mean the classes are "open" and "women" (meaning sex at birth) then I think you'd have to affiliate (or whatever the procedure is for triathlons)

Park run is only for fun, isn't it? (In which case you could argue why is anyone trying to do anything except perhaps beat their own personal best). One option might be to offer an option of 'prefer not to say' for both sex and age and people can then opt out of competing at all.

I can't see anything enforceable given it's a local, volunteer-led fun run, but it would give people another option. I don't know if the parkrun software/website is provided centrally, though?

Parkrun already gives the options of male / female / prefer not to say / another gender identity. The issue is that anyone can choose any of those options and it doesn’t have to bear any relation to their actual sex.

Ah thanks @WarningToTheCurious I didn't know that.