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?

It was me who suggested giving trans people the option to run unrecorded. I don't know where you all live where people get no stick for being trans. They have a hard time round my neck of the woods. Yes, so do other people. No, its true, they may not be at a higher risk of being murdered. But honestly, I only got a buzz cut and for that someone sprayed "Fuck off lesbo" on my wall a few years back - of course people are harassed for being gender non-conforming, amongst other things. Some men are looking for any reason to beat someone up.

Running unrecorded in a mixed sex environment hurts no-one and would be an option for transwomen who want to participate as women, without taking places from women. It wouldn't work for team sports, or contact sports, but long distance running doesn't present a health risk from being mixed sex, which is why parkruns work the way they do in the first place. The only detriment would be someone incorrectly pacing themself against someone they thought was an actual competitor.

Some men are looking for any reason to beat someone up.
So why is it up to women to solve their aggression?

This

Well I haven’t read anything quite as petty as this in a while but Mumsnet sure knows how to do petty on a petty scale of 1-10 it’s a 10.
if it was a fun run for a charity and not even anything serious you know how to kill the fun and take the F out of fun.
why are you even bothered? is it because you only got 3rd place and was surprised that the person involved even bothered to run and all you got was a cheap bottle of plonk.
This is hardly the olympics and no one’s taking any athletics medals or places away from anyone ?
would you rather that instead of someone entering the fun run just stands and watches from the sidelines because everyone’s too transphobic for her to even take part.
if you talk to the person involved and got on then why are you afraid of coming across as transphobic & if she was to even read this thread how do you think it would look for you?
this is nothing more than mean & spiteful over a 3rd place and a bottle of plonk.
i don’t think your a very nice person at all & what would be something to be brushed off and have a laugh about is a thread all about trans in sport and all that next thing it’ll be the Q angle and how very trans person is stealing medals and places from people that don’t even enter sports or compete 😩

Is this addressed to the OP or to Mumsnet?
Most of your points have been addressed in the thread - I assume you've read it and carried on being mean, not very nice and spiteful regardless? Or did you not read it?

I don't know why you couldn't just brush off this thread and have a laugh about it, Owning.

By the way, the OP didn't get to third place, as you have claimed. It looks like you've completely misunderstood quite a basic piece of information.

this is nothing more than mean & spiteful over a 3rd place and a bottle of plonk

youve made a mean and spiteful post and theres not even a bottle of wine in the mix!

A person too lazy to read even the opening post by the looks of it, never mind the whole thread, but the usual scream of transphobia.

There was nothing to stop this person running, but in the correct class, when the position taken would have been 37th.

All of which has already been said in the previous 400 odd posts.

Some posters though are known to not need any excuse or prize incentive to berate other posters on the FwR board.

I think it telling, their focus on ‘fun’. And missing the point that some people’s fun is based on having a fair competition to participate.

Maybe the prize should be a packet of round small baked goods that we cannot post emojis off on this board, Rufus.

Ooh it's a drive by scolding, with no actual reading of the thread.

What a surprise.

Since we are talking sport, ‘par for the course’, innit?

Peregrina, I'm not sure how Parkrun offering transwomen the opportunity to have their times unlisted is asking women to solve male violence.

Hi @Athleticpotential and other posters, the Women's Rights Network can offer support to women who are being discriminated against in their own sports. Please feel free to contact us if you need support or would like to add add your story to the increasing number of testimonies we have from women in similar positions. We use these testimonies to challenge governing bodies to look again at their trans inclusion policies.
Go to our website womensrights.network and you'll find the contact details there.

That was said in response to your comment 'Some men are looking for any reason to beat someone up.'

The discussion isn't about running in a mixed-sex environment, it's about trans-identifying men running against women and taking places from women. Which is what actually happened here.

Some men ARE looking for any reason to beat people up. I can see why a transwoman may not want to be listed as a man to avoid potential conflict. In this case there appears to be a simple no cost solution that satisfies all parties. I don't think it's a woman's job to offer compromise, but this could be a win win, rather than a compromise. There may even be other runners who would like to register but not have their time listed.
If we see solutions that are easy and may satisfy all parties, is the feminist position to keep quiet because only men should solve male problems? Can't we offer some options from the position as a human, even at zero cost to women, because it isn't of direct benefit to women only?

FWIW race results, with names, sex and age category, are normally reported, even for very small events.

The, Ok a question, and not a hypothetical or rhetorical one either, is, why is it a problem for people to be open about the fact that they're trans? What are the major issues besides what I hypothesise is the #1, Viz "some men are violent and will beat up TW or TM"?

Well I haven’t read anything quite as petty as this in a while but Mumsnet sure knows how to do petty

Yes, because things that hurt women are too trivial to mention. We should all shut up and put up with people cheating in the sports we enjoy.

It's a shame that she did not have the respect not to enter a women's race.

And they say that MN is not a place for meaningful discussion!! I mean, have a look at ownings last paragraph.

i don’t think your a very nice person at all & what would be something to be brushed off and have a laugh about is a thread all about trans in sport and all that next thing it’ll be the Q angle and how very trans person is stealing medals and places from people that don’t even enter sports or compete

There in amongst the derision and the berating, we get ‘Q angles’! Either owning is a sports expert and therefore maybe they could contribute some expertise and maybe a new slant to discuss on just why females should have to give up fairness for male inclusion.

I mean the swimming coaches of the USA have now also done a review of evidence and come up with the guidance that there is no fairness in male inclusion. You had World Rugby, the Sports Council, then the mess that is the OIC and now the swim coaches. The sporting organisations are admitting it one by one… much to activists worry.

No fairness, just kindness.

(I mean, seriously, what other area of life would subvert fairness in this way???)

Or owning has just shown they do in fact take in what they read on MN.

The hips most certainly don’t lie!!!

And hilariously really, reading that paragraph as a stand alone, the final bit about q angles, medals and team displacement, which are all true, but are being presented by owning as false or meaningless in some way, makes the judgement of the first part of the paragraph like an attempt at sarcasm or can be deemed as equally as untrue.

Just as much as ‘ from people that don’t even enter sports or compete ‘ was another falsehood. So, in amongst those supposed ‘put downs’ was truths, mockingly posed to be either of little consequence despite being true or as propaganda spread by uninformed people just repeating false pseudoscience. (Projection much?)

Because this is attempting to minimise the voices of people who do run or row or whatever but don’t ‘compete’, the many ex-sports competitors, the many coaches, managers and other contributors to sports who don’t ‘compete’, the people qualified in sports science and medicine and other fields, and even, wait for it , the parents of children and young people on a parenting forum discussing how these policies impact their children. Crazy right? That ‘those’ people might have a voice.

Nice attempt owning.

But yeah. Hips don’t lie!

I’m very confused about the idea that’s it’s a risk for Transwomen to compete as men because they would need to be open about being trans. Whereas if they compete as women , their trans status would be secret.

I have never yet see a man in a running shorts and vest who didn’t look like a man. Regardless of whether they identify as a man, a woman or something else. (I have never asked another athlete how they identify so of course I don’t know.)

I fully accept the OPs account that she did not know the other athlete was a man, but that’s not been my experience.

So Its not that Transwomen enter womens events to be secret. They are almost always very clearly men.

A trans woman entering a mens 10k would blend in with everyone else. A transwoman entering a womens 10k would stand out a mile. If they were a competent runner they would get lots and lots of attention, because they would make a very good time and everyone would wonder how a woman they had never heard of with no running experience had suddenly made such a good time.

Its definitely not the thing to do if you just want to quietly run a race like everyone else.

So I can only assume that Transwomen enter womens races to win prizes / times or for personal validation reasons. But it’s really REALLY not to be private.

And it’s not to keep safe and avoid getting beaten up in the middle of their local Parkrun / 10k / half marathon .

No one running knows that the man running ahead of them is a Transwomen until they look at the results. It’s not a safety issue.

This is Shakira performing, according to a poster on another thread.

It is all about Q Angles....

c.tenor.com/igzQOghIr7gAAAAC/shakira-loca-shakira.gif

Shakira - Hips don't lie!

This is a good point.

I think a similar issue is exposed by the media reporting male pattern crimes as being by women if the criminal says they are a transwoman. Male pattern crimes are so depressingly common that I don't think people would bat at eyelid at many of the stories. But post a headline including "woman" and people's interest is piqued. Women commit these crimes to a far, far lesser extent (over 90% of sexual and violent crimes are committed by males) so it acts as click-bait. People want to know what woman could have possibly committed a violent or sexual crime.

So the trans guidelines for the media end up drawing far more attention to transwomen who commit male pattern crimes than would happen otherwise. I'm just not convinced this is being pushed by people who care about trans people as much as they care about eroding women's boundaries.

Op did you decide to do anything about this in the end?