Parkrunners! Parkrun survey

[Parkrunners]

If anyone is a parkrunner and has a survey from them, I'd urge you to fill it in. There are two free text sections which provide an opportunity to tell them exactly what the impact of their sexist policy decision not to protect the female sex category has been. They have clearly commissioned this survey to gather data on the mental health and motivation and self esteem and self achievement benefits of Parkrun, as well as its competitive benefits and self-competition benefits, but none of that has been protected for women and girl runners who have effectively been told that Parkrun cannot be bothered to collect accurate sex category data for them, because we somehow don't count. What is it meant to do to the motivation and mental health of female runners to be told we are so second class that our sex category doesn't matter and can be dispensed with?

As a middle aged woman, I am particularly pissed off as the only way I can tell if my running performance is declining, maintaining or improving is to compare myself to others in the same age or sex category. And I can only do this if the sex category is protected.

I am really sick of Parkrun both knowing full well the importance of age and sex data for running and for their Parkrun model, and knowing full well they cannot remove this as the men would not stand for it, whilst also pretending none of this matters and they are just a fun little social run when they need to pretend its ok to record runners under gender identity. Parkrun are trying to maintain a position of both recording this data and pretending it doesn't matter. This is nonsensical.

Which rather proves the point of the performance gap between men and women, and why we need to keep the female sex category in sport.

The actual percentage number you get for your age grade which you can compare overtime for your own results does not depend on other people’s performance but is based on elite records. So for example, if somebody of your sex and age had done 5K in 15 minutes as a record and you ran 30 minutes, your age grade would be 50%.

Regarding comparing your performance with other people at a parkrun, this is okay if everyone is out there trying to get a PB but loads of people use parkrun as part of a longer run or maybe an easy run. It isn’t a race for everybody taking part so those comparisons might be a bit meaningless.

I do agree that trans women should not use the female gender for parkrun results (and there is the option to not have a gender recorded) but I think if parkrun took this stance it would be seen as less inclusive and they have doubled down on this and hidden the records away to go for community inclusive activity events rather than promoting fast running achievements. There is no way they could police it anyway which I know is not the point but it would just cause unpleasantness. To be honest there is no right answer to this that would make people happy and I really don’t think they’re going to change their mind.

If only the trans community would look at it and see that there should be a line drawn themselves and register by sex or other gender.

I do agree that trans women should not use the female gender for parkrun results (and there is the option to not have a gender recorded) but I think if parkrun took this stance it would be seen as less inclusive and they have doubled down on this and hidden the records away to go for community inclusive activity events rather than promoting fast running achievements. There is no way they could police it anyway which I know is not the point but it would just cause unpleasantness

I understand what you are saying but I do take issue with some of the underlying cultural attitudes in this post, which I see as part of the reason why fairness for women has been so dispensible.
be seen as less inclusive. Why is fairness for women seen as not inclusive? Why are women the category of people who can be deprioritised in this way? Women like me are asking for very basic and pre-existing rights. The right to fairness in sport. The fact that people can see maintaining this is 'not inclusive' is the problem and its a problem with the value placed on women in our society.
The position I am advocating excludes no-one. Everyone can still run, just under their sex ( or even a separate record by gender identity).

There is no way they could police it anyway Saying its too hard to police destroys all women's amateur sport. You've just said women's amateur sports are dispensible with because its too hard.

would just cause unpleasantness Again, the attitude here is that women standing up for their basic rights and fair treatment causes unpleasantness and so women should just stop doing this. Again, this reveals an underlying cultural attitude to the low value placed on women.

I am not having a go at this poster in particular, but rather I am using that paragraph as a really good example of the cultural attitudes to women that have allowed gender ideology to take hold.

Girls matter, women matter, as pp said, our participation in sport and activity is already lower than boys and men. We absolutely deserve and are entitled to fair and equal treatment in amateur sports, even if a few males find that unpleasant. Plenty of men were unhappy when women started running marathons but that was not a reason for women to stop.

Parkrun doesn't see itself as a sport, it sees itself as a mass participation activity (and it attracts huge numbers who are voting with their feet - literally - by volunteering, walking or running it; the numbers keep growing).

Yes it knows that people participate for all sorts of personal reasons, and that some might see it as competitive. But that's not what parkrun is setting out to offer - and it is why it has stated that it will if necessary scrap the published results - to make it clear that it's about the participation not the comparison to anyone other than yourself.

I like the published results - not to track my progress, but to see how my mates are doing (those I've seen are at the same event and who I look for in the table, those I have as "friends" on the scraper app, and those who belong to the same club as me - where I'm usually looking to see where they have been as a tourist). It would be a shame if that all went. But that is what might happen, because parkrun has been very clear it would rather do that than verify either the age or any other characteristic of its participants.

I had thought that parkrun results had been excluded from the Run Britain rankings (as the results are not verified) but someone told me that they were still there. That is something I think should change, because those rankings are about competitive sport.

I totally agree that the "real" reason for getting rid of the stats was because they were too cowardly to say that people should register under their sex, not gender identity.

The argument is always about "policing" it. Yet we expect people to register under the right age group and that doesn't seem to be a problem. I assume if a 20 year old ran a age course record in the 80-84 category someone would notice and raise it with parkrun HQ. So not sure why you can't raise an obvious male-bodied person running as a woman.

Agree it's tragic. Fair sport for women at any level, elite or "community", should not be controversial.

I had thought that parkrun results had been excluded from the Run Britain rankings (as the results are not verified) but someone told me that they were still there. That is something I think should change, because those rankings are about competitive sport

That's right, they are still there. I am glad about that, although I agree that they should not be as they are not robust.

Not sure why parkrun needs to accommodate people who want to go for a stroll either - there are alternative walking/hiking groups around. If it were down to me, there would be a cut-off of about an hour, depending on the difficulty of the parkrun course, but I'd get banned from parkrun for suggesting that!

Yes this is the point. We can't police every single driver's speed for example but that's no reason for not having a speed limit.

Similarly it is not possible to police everyone's sex registration but where it is spotted that someone has registered in the wrong sex class it should be possible to have that corrected.

@Parkrunners I do get what you are saying and agree with you. Why should women make way for transwomen. But I also want transwomen to feel they can parkrun. I know there are women who feel they can’t parkrun with the way things are now too and that is awful. parkrun HQ have gone for taking away a lot of statistics to try and make the problem go away and to be fair to them they have upset a lot of men by doing that (as well as women) and have not budged despite that.

Who says they can't parkrun? They don't even have to select male if they don't want to. There is a neutral category.

Of course no one says they can’t. Just like no one says the women (and men) who have boycotted parkrun because of this issue can’t. But I guess if you were a card carrying trans activist trans man or woman and the rules said you couldn’t run under your identified gender then you would feel like you couldn’t take part.

I had thought that parkrun results had been excluded from the Run Britain rankings (as the results are not verified) but someone told me that they were still there. That is something I think should change, because those rankings are about competitive sport

They are still there, but the times don’t count as competitive as the courses vary so much and are not necessarily accurate distance or timing. Shame as my park run PB is a minute faster than my real 5K PB.

I haven’t had a survey link.

Well that's their prerogative. Making it unfair for females who will then self exclude isn't the answer.

Out of interest what do you suggest parkrun do? I also agree trans women should be recorded as a separate category but I'm not sure how an organisation like park run could do it. They could add a trans option if they don't but ultimately it's self reported so it would be really hard to police.

As I said above, it's the same as age.

If an obvious youngster sets a course record in the 80-84 age category it is easy enough for the team to report it to parkrun HQ. Ok someone might knock 10- years off their age which is harder to police, but it's going to be incredibly rare.

Likewise, if an obvious male-bodied person sets a course record in a female category it is easy enough for the team to report it to parkrun HQ and ask for the record to be adjusted.

But apparently that's far too hard.

@AuntieStella
I am not using sport to mean competitive. Parkour is now recognised as a sport despite having a non-competitive ethos as part of its culture and origins. Being registered as a sport brings funding opportunities. Running is a sport and Parkrun literally has ' run' in its title. And it has, as has been described, literally set itself up in the same format as a running race and time trial, including having sex and age categories as these are relevant to achievement in running.

I intended to distinguish between competitive sport type of running events (such as events run under athletics rules) and mass participation events, such as fun runs and parkrun.

And yes I suppose you could get into hair splitting about events which are competitive for the elite runners but mass participation for many. But the point here is that parkrun, despite being a timed event on a measured course has firmly nailed its colours to the mast that it is about mass participation (and is prepared if necessary to ditch results tables completely if that becomes necessary for that ethos)

Thank you @Parkrunners (and other posters too!) for putting into words so clearly why this is unfair and uninclusive to women, and illogical too! Going to bookmark this thread for future use, even though I sadly don't have the survey!

To add a point as well:
There is absolutely no reason why, if they want to be more "inclusive", Parkrun could not capture both 'gender' and sex data - as long as they include the relevant opt-outs or "none" options, so people who don't believe they have a 'gender', or who prefer not to reveal their sex, don't have to enter one. They could even generate two sets of age gradings if they really wanted, one using the "gender" data (though this would be a bit meaningless, as they would be comparing race times categorised by internal feelings against records based on sex - but that's kind of what they're doing currently, anyway!) and one using the sex data for a meaningful result. So the questions would be something like:

"What is your sex (as recorded at birth)?" with options:

• Male
• Female
• Prefer not to say

and "Do you have a gender identity, and if so, what?" (or if they really must, "What is your gender identity?", but that's less 'inclusive' to people who don't believe in it!), with options:

• No (or "No gender identity"- I would like one that says "Don't believe in gender identity" really, but that's probably too much to ask!)
• Yes - identify as man
• Yes - identify as woman
• Yes - other/NB/whatever other options they want to include, or even "write your own"
• Prefer not to say

That would give options for everybody. Of course a few people might still lie about their sex, but at least could then be challenged on it if it was affecting the results.

It’s frustrating, but I can see why parkrun wouldn’t want to get involved in having to confirm people are who they say they are. It would put a lot of people off registering if you needed ID to confirm your age etc. (although I realise this isn’t ParkRun’s official reasoning for having anyone who feels like it registering as female)

As for affecting measuring progress, it’s not a very good indicator anyway. I can often be 1st in my age category, usually up to 3rd. From the results, it’s very clear that where I am in this is dependent on who else happened to run that day - nothing to do with my own relative performance. As others have said - the age grade % is a much better measure for this.
also - as parkrun average times are increasing, which fits their stated objectives of getting more people active, an individual who remains consistent would appear to be improving against others.

The comparisons are fun (not the same as important!) whist also being totally meaningless

“Similarly it is not possible to police everyone's sex registration but where it is spotted that someone has registered in the wrong sex class it should be possible to have that corrected.“

Possible -yes. But how much extra admin (which costs money - where is that coming from?) Not to mention the argo for the poor volunteer, already giving up their own free time for the benefit of others, who has to address it - ie how should they be determining whether someone is male or female because someone else reports to them they think they’re not what they say? would make for some very difficult conversations unfair to inflict on the RDs

They spend time policing the names people register with, so I don't accept this as a reason for accepting unfairness for females in favour of male desires.

Genuine question: what policing of names goes on?

This can't be done by volunteers at the events verifying name against ID, or indeed even parkrun HQ doing do (as there are "names" that are clearly not actual names that have been around for years and are still running).

So I was wondering if it were more a case of preventing people from registering with nicknames that contain swearing or other language widely held to be offensive (across every parkrun country, as one registration can be used internationally)

I think that some women had changed their names to Adult Human Female (or similar) and parkrun had deleted them.

Yes and other people changed their names to things reflecting the "bring back the stats" campaign and had them changed back.

It is not a big admin job for an RD to email HQ with concerns - they have to report other types of incidents. And it would only really be if a course/age group record were broken - nobody is going to bother checking every female result above say 25 minutes to make sure they are actually female. But if a female course record is broken and the person looks male (and despite what some MNers say, you CAN tell and "butch" women look like women, not men) a report can be made.

Just adopt the UK Athletics rules that participants participate by sex, not gender. No separate category required. There is no "policing" required by volunteers on the ground - it's based on honesty, just as age categories are. Most people are honest. If someone is reported for being dishonest, have a procedure to deal with it, exactly as if someone had lied about their age.

The one potential issue is that ParkRuns may be targeted by TRAs upset by their decision to have sex categories, however I don't think this is likely. I have not seen any athletics, swimming or cycling events targeted, despite all their governing bodies now rigidly enforcing sex segregation.

It's a job for HQ, not volunteers on the ground.