Trans Park Run Deletion

[TheUterati]

Poorly played, MN, very poorly played.

The perspective that when male athletes identify as female athletes and on the basis of that are eligible to compete against women, they are cheating is an absolutely valid one that is deserving of discussion.

Points in its favour are:

1. The context of cheating in sports as a whole - those self-harming activities that athletes willingly participate in to give themselves a competitive edge.
2. The evidence that mediocre male athletes who identify as female manage to then carve out glittering careers where those would not be available to them had they continued to compete as males.

It is an absolutely valid perspective.

Accusations of cheating against specific individuals may well be against talk guidelines, in the absence of supporting evidence, but those individual posts can be deleted and a friendly warning from MNHQ posted on the thread.

Males identifying as females and competing in female sports is a key issue in GRA, whether it occurs at the 'social, fun' end of things or at at Olympic level. To silence this debate is an appallingly heavy-handed.

NatLuc

I notice that now we are spending pages and pages of a thread about Parkrun discussing yours and Ada's status in society instead of Parkrun. This is something that also often happens hereabouts.

Everyone

Could we get back to Parkrun, please?

To be fair, NatLuc shot themselves in the foot a few pages back. However, 10/10 to NC for thinking if NC keeps on and on we will all see this from NC's point of view, ask MN to close FWR and go into the kitchen and make jam.

Langcleg - they're talking about parkrun. It's an interesting discussion.

@Yambabe - Men are males and trans woman are biologically male but that does not make me a man is what I said.. I am fairly sure.

Whilst natal women ARE female, trans women are not. I agree, but 'women' is not a biological term. Female is. You would not say 'that woman lion' You say 'female'. Of course 'woman' can be used in a social sense? I don't think I am being unreasonable to say that?

As I have said I know I am a trans woman as an absolute identifier that is distinct from being 'a woman' but I also absolutely refute the idea that 'under the makeup and clothes I am a man'.

NatLuc As you well know but are putting the inevitable spin on it, my reply was nothing to do with SP. My reply to you was due to you claiming it is me who has the problem. Typical, typical TW violin playing crap.

It won't wash you know.

I don't understand how anyone can be convinced that they are a woman, but be unable to define what a women is?

I've seen this idea that 'women' isn't an adult human female, but a social role. Yet nobody is willing to say what this social role is.

A lion isn't human, therefore wouldn't be a woman.

I've not seen 'park run' mentioned on this thread for a while now.

I've not seen 'park run' mentioned on this thread for a while now.

Because it has been successfully derailed.

@LangCleg - Yes that had not escaped me either I would love to get the topic back on course.

Woman has been defined as a person born female and who grew up with female socialisation. I think it captures well the interaction of gender ( society construct) and sex that impacts on our lives.

This is a recommended definition for scientific purposes that fits well with the term as widely used in society.

So a transwomen is not a subset or type of women.

Oops...now reading the derailment posts

Ada, I think we are all enjoying (in an odd sort of way) talking to you and Lucy and you are clearly decent people.

There's an issue in that if you and I sat down and you really really told me what you mean by feeling you've always been a woman, you'd have to talk about all sorts of things that are very person and intimate and most people don't want to do that on the internet.

I liked Terfulike's response to you. She said:
"Ada you say you feel like a women , and more, you are a woman. However, we women don't "feel" like we are women , we watch our womanhood emerge as teenagers. We see that we are women when we menstruate. We acknowledge that we are women when we buy pregnancy tests. We suffer as women during childbirth. We nurture in the best possible way as women when we gestate and breastfeed. These and other issues did not and will not happen to you. These things, and many others, only happen to women and that's why we know we're women."

I wouldn't use the term "evidence-based" myself but everything else I agree with.

We have been using a colonialism analogy recently on the board which might help you understand how we feel (and clearly you do care to at least some extent). So here's my crude (sorry) analogy. You're like the Pilgrim Fathers fleeing persecution. You are defined by your previous suffering and partial escape from it. We're like the hapless native americans who took you in as a refugee but for whom it doesn't end well.

Somebody pages back said parkrun had been "done to death." Now the thread's being told to stop talking about wider issues and start talking about it again." Make your mind up. Plus, now who's trying to police?

Thanks for that - I agree with your post, it's good to hear from people caught up in this mess, and hear how it affects and their thoughts.

But as far as Parkrun goes, does nothing to include trans woman who are absolutely not comparable to the definition of Men.

To be clear, Trans women competing with men makes no sense. But neither does having a third/fourth category for Trans men/women because unless the number of runners was in the thousands or tens of thousands there would not be enough of us to bother?

So in the context of a run that is organised without the intent of being competitive, where is the harm? It is not like me finishing before anyone else has robbed them of their time, they would have still finished in the time they finished in. I am not truly skewing any data other than an arbitrary position of order.

Organised races, where a trans person has clear physically measurable attributes that would give them a clear advantage I can also agree that at the very least, a sensitive discussion needs to be had. But finishing mid-table in a fun run.. not so much.

Though at the end of the day, if I had to register my 'sex' rather than my 'gender' then, of course, I would put Male. But only on the promise that there would be no way of identifying me through this disclosure.

The problem here is that trans people may use the word "woman" in a social sense but almost no-one else does. If you spend a lot of time in very right-on queer spaces I can see how you might assume that most people do, but in my experience they really don't.

I live in a very right-on kind of place and even here, people use woman and man in the traditional way 99.999% of the time and then stop and correct themselves when talking to a trans person, or someone they know is particularly invested in trans politics, unless they're part of some very specific social circles. Efforts have been made to get the queer theory generated meanings into common usage, and many people will play along to be nice, but ultimately that's all it is. Kindness. Not a general societal acceptance of the idea that a kind of metaphysical category of woman exists and has replaced the original, biology-based categorization.

"Trans women are women in the social sense" is what we used to call a white lie when I was a child, essentially, an untruth that both the speaker and the listener know isn't true told to spare feelings. The problem that Nat and Ada are running into in this thread is that the people here are not friends, family, etc who're sufficiently invested in their happiness to be willing to lie, and the subject on which the thread began (sports and what happens when trans women want to compete in categories reserved for women) is one that requires clarity in terms of definitions.

Also @ Nat specifically, there were a few times in your comments where you seemed to be using the words woman and female interchangeably, and that was confusing the issue even further. Some women here may be willing to let the white lie of "trans women are women socially" pass, but far fewer are willing to budge on the question of what "female" means.

Have you asked parkrun to include transgender as a separate category? I bet they would be more than happy to consider it.

Whilst natal women ARE female, trans women are not. I agree, but 'women' is not a biological term. Female is. You would not say 'that woman lion' You say 'female'. Of course 'woman' can be used in a social sense? I don't think I am being unreasonable to say that?

A female lion is a lioness, a female hawk is a hen, a female hippo is a cow, a female dog is a bitch, a female kangaroo is a jill, a female human is a woman.

You haven't elaborated on the social sense of being a woman despite being asked several times.

I'd use it casually, I suppose, in the sense of 'women's wear departments' -- that is, a place to buy clothing not just fitted to female bodies (mostly 6-foot boobless wonders, but I digress) but also clothes traditionally/culturally/stereotypically aimed at women.

I'd also use it for 'women's roles' in stage plays and dance steps, women's hairstyles, that sort of thing, without any deep thought about it.

Anyhow. Hope you continue to enjoy Parkrun, NatLuc, however slowly. If you get better at it, consider putting yourself in the Assisted category so's not to trample on other people's placings. Running is great for reducing existential angst.

To be clear, Trans women competing with men makes no sense.

At what point does it make no sense?

Man saying 'I am a woman' one morning
Man putting female jogging gear on
Man putting female jogging gear on and make up on
Man putting female jogging gear on, and has an appointment to see a doctor
Man after seeing a doctor but no referral
Man with referral
Man with referral and appointment for hormones
Man taking hormones for one day
Man having taken hormones for one week
Man having taken hormones for one month
Man having taken hormones for one year
Man having had surgery

Where does the man transform to a woman?

Oops. That looked like it was dismissing your point, Flora, whereas it's just my slow typing.

So in the context of a run that is organised without the intent of being competitive, where is the harm? It is not like me finishing before anyone else has robbed them of their time, they would have still finished in the time they finished in. I am not truly skewing any data other than an arbitrary position of order.

Thanks for bringing us back on topic. I appreciate it.

Parkrun is not inter-participant competitive and is inclusive in that is welcomes everyone, regardless of age, sex, fitness or talent. But it does encourage participants to be competitive with themselves in the sense of motivating them to improve their times and thus fitness levels by comparing themselves with their peers by age and sex.

The positions aren't arbitrary: they are designed to enable particpants to compare themselves to the best, average and worst of their peers. If they are not doing that, this functionality is skewed and does not give an accurate picture.

I sort of get that a man can feel ‘not like a man’ but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they ‘feel like a woman’

Perhaps the sad truth is that what they feel like is neither man nor woman but something else, some ‘other’ that society has not yet fully grasped.

I thought the sensible suggestion was for transwomen to put F but mark it as assisted? What's wrong with that idea? Even if you yourself don't think you are assisted, as it's 'only a run and not a race', surely it does no harm for the transwoman and shows respect to the women into whose category you want to belong.

Or, again, since apparently the organizers are very helpful and response, a quick "hey, would you mind adding a category for trans women/trans men?"

From earlier:
one person running as f instead of male who finishes mid table is not preventing yourself from seeing how you do compared to z200 other women

It is if they finish ahead of you and push you down the rankings. Which are not 'an arbitrary position of order'; they're based on actual finishing order and are published on the website and emailed out to participants after every parkrun.

Anyway, who's to say every person running as f instead of male will finish mid-table? The faster they are, the more women they will displace in the rankings. Where do you draw the line? Would you say 'it doesn't matter' as long as they're slower than 30 minutes, 27 minutes, 25 minutes... what about 20 minutes? Anyone registered as a woman and finishing in under 21 minutes in my age category, at my local course, would automatically go to 1st place in the table of 'Top performances by [age/sex category] athletes at [location] parkrun', also published on the website. Which if they were biologically male would be massively unfair on the women currently at the top, well all the women full stop, really, but particularly the top two who run almost every week and are (quite rightly) proud of their achievements. It also makes it that little bit harder for those of us further down the table to achieve our own modest goal of moving up a few places!