Park run email today - "Living as myself"

[wantmorenow]

blog.parkrun.com/uk/2022/07/27/living-as-myself/

Today of all days after Allison's victory!

Another form asking us to choose a gender or prefer not to say when I just want the word sex. Or non-believer in gender identity woo.

Who do we email to put our protected beliefs to?

Looks like they've switched to ranking times by gender rather than sex.
If you don't declare a gender identity, you won't be in the age rankings either. I suppose you can log in and see your own times and see whether you've improved against previous times?

It's a while since I've been to Parkrun as I now work on weekends, but I'd better go to my profile and make sure they haven't got me listed as having a gender identity. Wouldn't want to mess up their records!

support.parkrun.com/hc/en-us/articles/360005339137-Gender

So does that mean there’s going to be rankings for “Prefer Not To Says” and “Others (please specify)”

Ludicrous

So, how do the prefer not to says get ranked. I like looking at how I compare in my sex and age category. Now that will be meaningless.

I am not particularly good but that isn't the point

This is exactly it.

As far as I understand it, they won't be ranked? Or at least not by category, just in the group of all runners that week.

It seems that your previous runs are still displayed on your profile including the "female" ranking. I suppose that makes sense; as the years pass you'll have some runs in one age group, then other runs in older age group(s). So same logic.

What a dull read

interestingly Ada is recorded as female in the results
www.parkrun.com.au/kedron/results/269/

and not that it particularly matters but Ada is Australian
www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-02/parkrun-running-trans-gender-diverse-participation-inclusion/101198596

So if trans people are recording themselves as their chosen gender, then that whole email was a complete waste of time.

As before I didn't know that trans women were women for the their parkrun identity. Now I do.

And I have to be sympathetic to a person who can't run as fast as they could before transition. Life sucks, and we make decisions. Whilst this isn't on the level of elite sport it still matters.

Because it doesn't allow you to record your sex, to some of us that matters. It's also a legal term, if they are collecting data it should be accurate.

Provided results continue to be reported by sex, it think that's OK?

People can live "as themselves" provided it doesn't impact on others. Sport does seem to be realising this now. There can be a place for trans athletes without it impacting on women.

AFAIK no parkrunner has ever had to prove their sex (or age or ID) so anyone can cheat if they feel so inclined.

How can results be reported by sex when the form doesn’t require you to declare which sex you are? It only asks for gender, which is meaningless in the context of sporting results since biological males who identify as being female in gender will have their results recorded under the ‘female’ category alongside the biological women.

I got it this morning too. I was competitive in my age/sex category before I had COVID (twice) and gained a stone and a half, was looking forward to climbing back up the rankings. I guess I'll just be competing against myself and my time, rather than validating identities.

I’m not going to run Park Run as there are 22 year old men running where I run but I can compete with other women in my age group. One week I was the fastest woman over 35 & I’m mid 50s. It matters to me!

Incidentally a man at our local PR won a couple of weeks ago and then lost a bet the following week and had to run in a dress. He was a few seconds slower, was that as a result of his transition 🤣?

Me too, but no one has ever had to prove their age etc, so you've never known if it's a fair contest.

I was recently beaten (to third place) by a transwoman in a local race and I was surprised how much it upset me. But at this level you don't have to prove your age/sex or identity so anyone could have put false details down. I also regularly get beaten by a woman who looks much younger than me. I expect she's just in really good shape, but who knows?

This all happens within the context of real people and communities. In the past, if there was a man who'd recorded female on the parkrun form and smashed the course record, perhaps the run director would talk to him in person and not include his result. However now parkrun volunteers would have to make the assumption that the person had recorded their gender identity and thus couldn't be questioned. It's similar to what's happened in bathrooms, that there used to be social forces which prevented males from stepping over the lines as the rules were clear. Now the rules are so unclear as they are meaningless, there isn't that social group questioning that used to happen as no one wants to confront someone and appear a bigot or transphobic.

*win not run. I regularly run at park run & have never finished first overall or by sex.

This is not about elite or even truly competitive sport, this is about encouraging people at all levels to be more active. It seems like Ada, once she realised she could no longer match previous times, is participating more as a volunteer which is something to be celebrated surely. The times and rankings are not really the point, you can choose to record these or not. The point really is the taking part. We are always saying (or I am anyway) that trans people are welcome to take part in sport, they just shouldn't be competing unfairly in the wrong categories and this seems like exactly the opportunity for that to happen.

How can they do that if they don't collect the data?

The age rated scores are based on official athletics data, e.g. World records, where things like sex and age have to be proved to enter, not parkrun results where none of this data has ever been verified

Good for Ada, I'm glad parkrun has helped them socially and their mental health.

But I don't want to be benchmarked against people with male bodies. That's not fair.

We should be allowed to be categorised by sex if we want to, not have it removed and replaced by gender. By all means have gender categories too. But I want to see my results against women.

Where can we raise objections about this?

So anyone who doesn't have a gender is a bit stuffed now, are they?