Parkrun to remove course records

[Ingenieur]

In response to criticism of its "gender categorisation policies", Parkrun are now removing a suite of details and records from the site.

https://twitter.com/Cantspekl/status/1755170910787490028

One more thing taken away...

Ugh, it's attitudes like that that would put me off parkrun, not running alongside people who are trans.

Setting aside the rest of your comment (I agree that pointing out mannish-looking women is unhelpful), I think you misunderstand the main objection if you think it's about women not wanting to run alongside trans people.

As a woman, I have zero issue running alongside trans people, men, children, buggies, etc.

My issue is that I can't compare my data to others of my sex and age range to see how I'm performing relative to key biological factors relevant to the activity. I don't care who else runs, but if Parkrun is going to collect and publish data based on various biological categories, it's only useful if it's accurate.

It's so disheartening for women who are trying really hard to see themselves slipping further and further below average as more biological males join their category and push the average out of their reach.

Yes and it adds to the ambient sense that, "We all say we recognise them as equals but, come on lads, we all know women are bit-playing support humans".

https://x.com/fairplaywomen/status/1755662569300230602?s=20

It was always going to be one of three groups that had to suck it up with this, the trans "community", women or people that enjoy parkrun as a race and like stats and records. Obviously women had their turn first because that's the default choics when calling upon one group to suck it up. Now it seems to be time for everyone who dares to enjoy a bit of friendly competition to have their turn. They'll never ask the sacred trans to suck up a tiny bit of a reality check for the sake of everyone else though.

Maybe if wider society is inconvenienced (as opposed to just women), the downsides of telling TRAs to fill their boots may be considered, rather than just ignored. What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

Katie Montgomery has a fairly predictable take on the news of the removal of the records (in response to FPW's tweet above). The DARVO continues to flow strongly through this one.

And you destroyed them because you hate trans people so much you'd hurt every woman on earth to cause a single trans person suffering if you had to

https://x.com/KatyMontgomerie/status/1755903670879707256?s=20

A chance for girls to shine and gain confidence from seeing 'first woman

Exactly, and as I said above, they might decide they like running/athletics and get into it in a big way and be the next Eilish McColgan.

In fact my son did. I started running, did parkrun, took him with me, he joined an athletics club and competed for England.

But I've always thought of parkrun as a particularly safe space for women to exercise without heckling.

I think Parkrun's decision is probably a good thing in terms of getting to the crux of the issue.

Initially, the two main arguments available to them in saying that males are female were (1) sex doesn't matter in running and (2) competition doesn't matter.

If they had gone with the first option and deleted their 'gender' categories, only women would have been disadvantaged and men wouldn't have cared as their times wouldn't have been affected. (Obviously, this option would have been a harder sell anyway, given the general direction professional sport is moving in).

But by doubling down on their argument that competition and stats don't matter at all (and essentially implying that grassroots and amateur sport doesn't matter) they have managed to shit on everyone equally and undermine much of the appeal of Parkrun for many of its supporters.

If they end up reinstating the competitive element, they will have to concede that it's unfair to women to not have their own category based on biology, since it can't be the case that only men should get the competitive element back but not women.

Some of those tweets from men are incredibly revealing.

Some men are getting doubly angry because not only have they had their stats taken away despite telling women that stats don't matter ad nauseum for so long... now, also, some of those inferior woman-humans are laughing at them. 😭

I'm having a good old laugh over on Twitter. Every time an indignant male park runner complains a GC pitches up and asks them why they didn't object before?

They are annoyed... not only because the stats have been taken away but also because it was the bloody women fault tehy wouldn't just shut up and let men take their records. It is even more depressing... they still don't see that we matter.

😬The Telegraph

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/2024/02/09/parkrun-event-director-quits-removing-records-transgender/

https://archive.ph/Pwwy5 link with no paywall

"Calm down dears" says parkrun HQ. It just gets better and better this. 😆

Now it affects men a BBC presenter is suddenly interested in the Parkrun situation 🙄
https://twitter.com/sharrond62/status/1755684355286962258

Sophie Raworth no less. I wonder if she might speculate on why there might be a dearth of women record holders who can speak up?

Unless, of course, Sophie is interested in women whose records were erased before this action, and for a different reason?

🎯

And, you know what they say…. men are afraid women will laugh at them. Women are afraid men will kill them.

It was on the BBC news last night (10 o'clock), and I was somewhat surprised

On that note... I saw someone talking about a "tirade of attacks" (by women campaigners) on FB and X on the core team at Cannon Hill parkrun. I found only a handful on deleted posts on their FB page when I went to look, so curious about what a "tirade of attacks" might look like I googled "Cannon Hil parkrun attacks" to see if any forum posts with examples of such or anything cropped up anywhere.

Unfortunately the first two hits were about a woman getting stabbed while running alone in said park. Which rather illustrates the points about barriers to sports participation for women made by a previous poster!

@WomaninBoots iirc there was some back and forth earlier in the week over Mara’s Parkrun photo being deleted, including comments on the fb page from the photographer explaining he’d been asked to delete it.
You should be able to see the photos on the link to Mara’s tweet, and you can see people complaining about deleted photos underneath. We have receipts.
https://x.com/marayamauchi/status/1754437388338683999?s=20

Oh my! What a tirade of abuse that was! 🤣

Apparently parkrun policy is to not promote political causes which is why they deleted the photos of the women... I hope no parkrun has ever published a photo of someone wearing a pride flag on any kind then.

And I'd question whether a protest over parkrun policy is "political" anyway.

It is wonderfully satisfying to see Parkrun hoist by their own petard, by doubling down on the "It's not a competition" argument, when what they really meant is that "Only male competitors (of all gender identities) matter".

This is the tweet with the pic of the fb comment by the photographer https://x.com/marayamauchi/status/1754432964958568489?s=20

Does anyone have a link to parkruns policy on political statements, protests etc? Because, yes, there are potential many t-shirts that qualify as political statements.

Seen earlier, sums it up well!