Why is the parkrun decision wrong?

[Getonnow]

It feels all wrong to me, but I've had lots of men tell me they thinks it's the right decision and the only thing they could do in the circumstances.

I think it's a cop out and they haven't dealt with the actual issue and also that they've lied about the real reason for the change, but I'm having trouble articulating it beyond that. Help me?

I like to know my time to compare myself to how I did the week before - trying to beat my personal best time.

ANY solution that does not involve stating that women deserve their own category and some respect will suffice.

How inclusive.

So you are competitive. Against yourself. So not just a ‘fun run’ then.

Thing is, people wanting times and being competitive doesn't actually stop other from just enjoying a run and a blether and some companionship on a Saturday morning. Trying to be "inclusive" by taking away stats and times and all that actually just spoils the experience for a chunk of people.

"Time it yourself/wear a watch" I'll let my FW85-89 friend she needs to go out and buy herself some tech. How about the JW/JM10s? Should they time themselves too? Have you ever, ever pushed yourself hard in a run? When I cross a 5K finish line I'm trying not to throw up, not thinking about pressing a button. "Go do a proper race then"... well that's the thing, people would. Clubs will reintroduce more 5Ks again and people will stop going to parkrun in droves and then the event will fizzle out to nothing. Parkrun know this, which is why they will still keep timing. The "it's a fun run, times don't matter" is a complete sop to cover up the fact they are too scared to say no to cheating males.

You could not collect a bar code at the end, or just delete the email, or just run and time yourself on the same route on your own every week.

Just because you don’t want an official time or placing it doesn’t mean nobody else does.

Perhaps this will attract people who want the fun element that PR promise (but don’t deliver)? I went a few times to our local one as a complete non runner and was surprised to see how competitive it was, with the front hundred or so made up of local running clubs - very few walking, and then the times published which added to the horror. Even worse, the course doubled back on itself so as I was coming up to the halfway mark as a sweaty out of breath plodder the running clubs and fastest runners were watching us from the finish line. Mortified.

Then why are they sending place by sex? When it's actually not by sex.

But that is not what most runners want. Do you not care what most runners want

Have you not read the petiton?

Here you go. Here are those questions again.

Can you clarify please, do you falafels believe that male people should be able to compete in a female sports category when the female sports category has been set up to give female athletes fairness and safety?

Or do you believe that a male athlete taking testosterone suppression drugs reverse all the advantages that puberty has given them?

I mean, you had the ridiculousness to say this...

"Which probably explains why you're being hypocritical over complaining that not all your questions are being immediately answered and then glossing over ignoring ? ones asked to you."

I did give you quite a long time to answer, yet you made this performative outraged post when it took me 24 minutes to post my answer to yours.

I think we all can see that you are reluctant to own your opinions. Either you fully believe that males who have gone through male puberty have their physical advantages negated with transition and so provide 'fair' competition OR you believe that female athletes should have access to a protected sports category based on sex (without the effect of performance enhancing drug) meaning no male people at all. There is no other position that I can see here.

So, which is it? time to own your position.

Helleofabore I think you can run for fun, but want to beat your own time, to see if your own level of fitness is improving.
However if a person wishes to set themselves a challenge and keep track of their record that's on them.
Falafel It's completely pointless having a male and female division if males are running in the female section. It doesn't matter how someone identifies biology can't change . One can wear a dress and run in kitten heels, or wear a tuxedo and cowboy boots, but biology remains XY or XX (rarely XXY and even more rarely XYY) no amount of wishing, wanting or taking hormones can change that biological fact.

Okay PR is for fun but why would it be okay for a biological male to run in a female category for PR but not for other competitions, particularly when money starts being involved? So in cycling you have male and female competitions, at what point do we say biological males can compete in female categories Because once money is involved surely it then becomes open to deception? What happens if you have four, five six biological males competing all claiming to identify as female, because they all want a chance to win the money? And more importantly where does that leave women's sport? I mean we know this is already happening we just need a lot more men competing in female sport, because if that happened it would at least even up the playing field for the men, and I suspect a fair few mediocre men would stop competing, because their advantage would be taken away.
Maybe women just shouldn't compete at all, or even do sport at all?

Then we can have lots of fat, flabby, unfit women, who can't conceive and risk dying young due to unfit lifestyles... I mean it's a bit like going back to the nineteenth century and not educating girls after the age of 12 as it was considered bad for their ovaries.

Yes. Ani. If someone is in a 'fun run' and wants to set themselves a challenge, it is on them. I agree and suggested to falafel that if that is what they wanted to do now that it is just a 'fun run' that they should organise that themselves. Either they can get someone to help if it is difficult to do/no equipment or do it themselves.

Measuring time, even for yourself, is a type of competitiveness. I compete against my own times all the time to assess how my fitness is improving. It is a type of gamifying. But Parkrun declaring it is just for fun and then releasing times, rankings etc is just them being dishonest.

No they aren’t a necessity. We have survived without them before and you are making an excuse to avoid answering the question.

Why do you believe that women should put up with inferior treatment compared to men?

Why do trans identified people not like the "female" and "open" categories? It's not because it is 'outing', which is just more bollox. It's because it denies them the opportunity to get a little thrill at seeing their name with a "W" or "F" next to it.

Also, running a hard 5K effort and trying to beat your own and other people's time IS FUN! For a lot of people. Nothing about people doing that or being recorded doing that actually stops people who like an easy run, or a walk, and a chat and a cake having fun too. It's real dog in a manger stuff to take away something other people enjoy just cos you don't want it.

Parkrun HQ deciding that new runners are put off by evidence of the existence of faster runners is just plain infantalisation of the new runners.

I mean, if that was really why they've taken the records down... which it clearly isn't.

You are talking an awful lot about your wants there

You want your times sent to you
You want to compare yourself to how you did the week before
You want to try to beat your times

Yet when other women on here say what they want they get told they are being unreasonable...

This.

They can run, with their sex being the important factor.
Not identity
If they dont like it they can go find a competitive race instead of a local fun event.

Park Run could have called it a fun run and kept the "competition against yourself" aspect that people enjoy by recording names and times only and sending a personalised email with your time. No leader board, no finishing position, no age or sex grading either published online or sent by email. They haven't done that though.

Also, I don't think you have to be a Park Run attendee, an athlete, a runner or even occasional jogger to care deeply that the messaging coming from the leadership of both public and private bodies is that men matter more than women, and that words don't have meaning. These are fundamental issues that are not localised to one small "fun run".

Apparently, you do according to some people. Yet, I also believe those are the same people who cheerlead male posters who are telling women what they should accept, what they should call themselves and what they should be allowed to say.

Of course women should care and be able to discuss what is happening at Parkrun without being part of it. Just like women should be able to care about women's refuges without having ever been in one or needed one, and the same with rape crisis centres and prisons.

That is, after all, feminism. Working for all female people collectively.

And if women started their own event, as they have done with so many other activies/spaces/events, how long before men started to try encroaching on that too?

I am a regular parkrunner and volunteer and have written to parkrun asking them to change their gender policy from self ID.

Their contact form is here if you want to send them a message too.

Submit a request – parkrun Support

I think Woman that your post needs to be repeated.

Saying 'It's a free event' is rather missing the point that it is funded by grants from a public body. Saying 'it is a free event and if you women don't agree with how it is run, you should leave' is like declaring that any other service that is funded by a public body shouldn't listen to women's needs. And who the fuck would agree that that is appropriate behaviour?

Yeah. Frankly? Fuck. That. Shit.

I'm competitive. I used to be a pretty goof cross country runner at 5 and 10km. If I'm running in a timed run with lists and rankings? You bet I will be REALLY pissed off if I get placed behind a lying man.

I'm a veteran runner now - but will still try to a) beat my pb and b) beat anyone (in any class/age/sex) who is running to the finish at the same time as me. And in a general list I Donvt care. In a class list? The ones in front of me should honestly be in that category. And this is why I haven't got my runners with me even though this Saturday for the first time in yonks I'll be near a Parkrun.

I don't expect anyone to care.

But: anyone who says "it's not the winning, it's the taking part" is never going to understand. So they can can it, because it literally neither concerns nor "harms" them.