I was beaten to third place in a running race by a trans woman

[Athleticpotential]

It's a very low key local running race, neither of us are usually contenders, but a combination of circumstances meant the field was such that we finished 3rd and 4th.

The prize is a bottle of cheap wine, it's not about that.

I know her to chat to at races and I like her. It's not common knowledge that she's trans, she enters races as a woman. She is very masculine to look at, but TBH, until recently I thought she was an unfortunate woman, I had no idea.

So in the scheme of things it doesn't matter, but it does....?

Should I "do" anything? What?

so mens feelings matter, but womens don’t. Got you.

No, if you bother to read my posts you will realise that you haven't got what I have said at all. My reading of it is that this transwoman won 37th place in the men's race and that is what should have been recorded. As an earlier post today by NecessaryScene said, which I agreed with, if this person didn't want to be outed as a transwoman, the choice would have been to accept that taking part in a fun run was something which had to be forgone.

Yes, it's a good idea to have a box to say that you don't want to compete in a sexed category, but would this transwoman have ticked that box? We don't know. Your Lia Thomas's of the world would most definitely not tick an unsexed category.

But 'Jane' didn't tick the male box. It doesn't matter for a fun run, apart from not getting the acknowledgement of your true place in the race.

that reads to me like you said it doesn’t matter that women don’t get acknowledgement of their true place in fun runs because a transwoman didn’t tick the male box

All my sympathies with you, OP.

I'm an old woman who runs ( obviously). I've done a lot of thinking about what I would do, in this very scenario, should it occur.
And if it does, I am not going quietly. I am not going to ' have a quiet word with the organisers afterwards'.
No.
I will be standing up and yelling, pointing, and the word 'cheat' will be used. A lot.

As for the poster who suggested we should be careful not to 'out' the poor itsy TW... 😡😴

Oops, ignore 2nd emoticon.
There seems to be a bug in the new revamped mumsnet, as you can't delete emoticons! Weird.

Reallyreallyborednow I have written a quite a lot of posts on this thread, and you have taken an inference from one of them which I haven't said.

The opening post sums up the dilemma perfectly.
So in the scheme of things it doesn't matter, but it does....?

The vast majority of us agree, but what to do is the problem. We then had a few interlopers with their cries of transphobe. Fortunately, I think they all got seen off.

@oviraptor21 could you email Fair Play For Women about those TW you have come across? They don't go after any individuals but they do talk to sport governing bodies about it, many of whom think there are no TW or that no one minds.

Interesting to note we have posters who feel its too late for women to speak up about transwomen competing as women and we should have done this 5 years ago and we have posters who feel its too early and we should wait until it’s more evident its a problem

Anyone would think there is never a right time or set of circumstances when women can legitimately object to male behaviour that negatively affects them

How much were we aware of it five years ago? I became aware when the Olympics let a man compete in the woman's weightlifting, which was last year.

I don't think anyone has said it's too early - more that what's the most effective way to tackle it?

I was pleased to see today that one of the founders of Stonewall is equally pissed off because a noisy minority of transpeople/women have highjacked the organisation.

Its taken more than five years of women screaming to be heard to drag people's attention onto what's happening, sadly. It's a bit like Horton Hears a Who. Females screaming 'we are here, we are here' and after a few years people vaguely go 'what? Did someone say something?'

Jane Clare Jones wrote the 'Annals of the Terf Wars' which summarises the early timeline rather well. janeclarejones.com/2018/11/13/the-annals-of-the-terf-wars/

Peregrina How much were we aware of it five years ago? I became aware when the Olympics let a man compete in the woman's weightlifting, which was last year

One of the first threads I remember on Mumsnet was a Transwoman explaining why it was perfectly reasonabe for them to compete in the female category in Parkrun. The thread was deleted although I don't remember it being particularly unkind.
This would have been about 2018 I think, so not quite 5 years ago.

It may be a bit of fun, but pub quizzes are meant to be a bit of fun, yet you'd get disqualified for breaking the rules and using your phone.

I think we're all very aware of male advantages in sport thanks to some of our very brave sportswomen speaking out. So this is breaking of rules of fairness.

Without fairness it's difficult to have fun and that was the case for the OP.

I remember that thread as Im a park runner. It was full of this from the OP

well I feel female
Im slower than I used to be so that makes me a woman
I want to run in a skirt and I can’t do that as a man
Its just for fun
I’m not identifying as a woman just to steal your place
I get such a thrill from seeing my name in the results with F against it
I am the most marginalised person ever

Plus ca change.

The only only current tropes I don’t remember are

Ill kill Myself if you don't let me have my own way
Be Kind

It's a shame they have mucked up the Advanced Search or we could trawl back and find when Transwoman started appearing on this board.

I want to run in a skirt and I can’t do that as a man

Even back in the 1950s when sex discrimination was alive and kicking, even in schoolgirl races we all wore shorts on sports days.

I know, thats the reason I’m remembered the comment. Ive done more than 300 parkruns and have only seen one woman running in a skirt.

There used to be a trans woman at our local Parkrun but they looked, dressed and ran exactly like a man. I only realised that they were running in the female category when I was volunteering on the funnel one day.

I think we all know attitudes to trans people are still pretty hostile, I can see why someone would prefer not to have everyone aware of their medical / mental health history just to run in a fun run. If that's their choice it should be respected in day to day life (except situations where someone else's health or safety takes a higher priority such as female only services/ spaces)

i like a PP suggestion of a not recorded option on run entry forms for this type of situation.

I think we all know attitudes to trans people are still pretty hostile

i don’t, actually. I have checked the crime stats and trans related crime is far lower than crime against women, race, homophobia etc.

i have asked multiple times on various platforms to be shown evidence with none forthcoming. Or they cite brazilian stats where there is a big problem with trans sex workers.

as far as I can tell the vast majority of people are absolutely fine with people dressing and living as the opposite gender. There is no hostility toward the person in o:p’s race, or against Lia thomas. The objections are against a male in a womans race.

any hostility I have seen is from the TRA community against so called terfs and transphobes. Have a look at some of the comments aimed at JKR. Funnily enough no comment a woman would ever make- i’ve never seen a woman threaten sexual assault when “offended”.

I think we all know attitudes to trans people are still pretty hostile, I can see why someone would prefer not to have everyone aware of their medical / mental health history just to run in a fun run

No, that's not something "we all know" and there's a good reason for that: it's not true.

As women, a substantial number of us experience constant harassment or hostility of various grades of severity. We're so accustomed to the low-grade stuff that it can be hard to remember that's what it is. I can't find it now but there was a report about nurses in the NHS a couple of years ago and they reported an extraordinarily high level of sexual harassment and assault at work. I know there are people who would affect to find that flattering or understandable but that is a substantial number of women who experience that level of hostility because of their chosen occupation.

Yes, sometimes it's people gobbing off or being obnoxious and I'd suspect that this is more generalised than directed solely towards trans people. Otherwise, I wonder if you're styling a different perspective on fairness, which is plausibly contextual the majority of the time, as hostility.

Separate to the above, and unrelated to Parkrun, I'm going to close with a wider PSA. Even for 'fun' community events, if you're asked for medical history details, give them. Nobody is asking you because they're nosey, organisers need to know for insurance and to alert group leaders to watch out for particular people. There have been tragic incidents because people omitted necessary information from their histories and the ripple effect of these incidents has been devastating.

But this whole 'outing' thing holds no water anyway

If you don't want to be recognised as being a TW, then don't force other people into the discourtesy of having to tell you they know. Don't make it relevant if you don't want others to have to talk about it.

Once you've decided to run in a race, as a woman, and therefore bounce a female person out of the female race because you wanted to be in that situation for your own personal agenda, you've now put the female people in the situation of:

a) make it all about you, worry exclusively about your needs and your feelings and what is best for you, and subordinate their own feelings, issues, equalities and desire to speak out to mummying you. Which is as sexist as hell, is expecting and exerting male privilege over females which makes a bit of a nonsense of trying to not be outed or competing on the grounds of 'we're all women together', and is just basically exploiting those female people for personal gain

or

b) deal with those female people saying right, this is unfair and I am forced to point out that this person is male however they feel about it - they chose to put me in this position, and I will not enable their feelings over mine on the grounds that they are more important as a human than I am for - lets face it - sex based reasons.

To moan about female people doing b, says that really, you're a believer in a). Which is just plain being a fan of sexism and I'd be interested in the arguments of how, when you support a position that a male person always in this situation matters in ways that female people just don't, and should be spared experiences that females should just put up with as some kind of birthright of unfairness, is not just boring old male supremacism.

I absolutely agree that most people have no issue with people dressing as they want or presenting however they like. There have always been people who do this, no issues.

But they shouldn’t take priority over women in a women’s competition

As women, a substantial number of us experience constant harassment or hostility of various grades of severity. We're so accustomed to the low-grade stuff that it can be hard to remember that's what it is

Yes. I remember reading a long twitter thread from a transwoman outlining “trans hostility” they didn’t have to think about while male.

every single thing she mentioned was an issue with not being outwardly male. Crossing the road to avoid groups of lads, walking home late at night with your keys in your fingers. Awareness of footsteps behind you, making sure you didn’t get in the tube carriage with one man or group of men.

basically she had lost her male privilege and was mistaking that for hostility.

@Reallyreallyborednow you are spot on with this ! I am fed up to the back teeth about trans women and safe spaces and special numbers to call - welcome to the world of women or did they think it was all about wearing a skirt and make up?

I think we all know attitudes to trans people are still pretty hostile

And I think we all know attitudes to trans people have hardened since TWAW became a required position on transgender instead of a whacky out-there extreme, while widening the definition of "trans people" beyond diagnosed gender dysphorics has inevitably made more people suspicious of who is being "included" in what and why.

In a way, the recent insistence on including transwomen in women's sport has done a huge favour to the GC position. It's a visible and easily understood case where transwomen are obviously not the same as women.

If you wanted to show the world that TWA(N)W you couldn't have chosen a better strategy.

We keep talking about how infantilising it is to say that this male had a choice and was fully on board with entering a race as a female. But I really don’t think it sinks in.

What is it about this group of males that people are so willing to defend their, the males entering female sport, actions behind ‘outing’? It only supports the ‘doing it for validation ‘ argument. I don’t believe in the UK one transitioned male would be ‘banned’ from participating as the sex they are, male, in a male category for sport.

Why has so much misinformation been allowed to be spread also to support the ‘they are no longer ‘male’ ‘ fallacy?

Has @Ntsure come back to tell us why these males are no longer males??

Yet, we are still also waiting for posters to tell us which other sporting categories they are also happy to have accept people from outside the category in if they support males competing in female categories.

Examples given were age - masters and child, impairment, weight, professional/amateur status amongst others.

Any takers to the questions ignored up thread?

Being an adult really does come with the responsibility to self regulate. Don’t want to be ‘outed’, proactively find a way to do what you want to do without harming another person.

Just to be clear, there is NOTHING stopping a person who identitifies as trans entering any kind of running event in the UK. People can identify as anything - a dog, giraffe or a sofa. Application forms don’t need to know your religion or sexuality or personal identity.

They DO need to know accurate medical information for your own safety.

Very few if any running events have a dress code , so you can run wearing a wig high heels, stockings if you feel like it. Indeed lots of mass participation events have people wearing a wide range of outfits.

No one looks at your name and your appearance and says “ Gosh you are a 6ft bloke yet you are called Charmaine “.

It doesn’t happen.

Trans identifying people can enter and run in events as much as they like. They just need to do what everyone else does - enter in their correct category for age, sex and disability.

If they do that then 99.99 % of other athletes will welcome their participation . It’s the cheating that peoples don’t like - NOT the trans status.

I think we all know attitudes to trans people are still pretty hostile

I think most people don't give a shit about what trans people do in their private life. What they DO feel hostile about is when this small group of people want everything changed for them, to accommodate their wants and needs which they seem to think are more important than anyone else's - whose rights are infringed? Women's - women who are biologically born a female , not assessed at birth and all this other shite that is spouted.