She Races Ultra Trail Races excludes transwomen...

[HowToMoveOnNow]

... and is getting huge backlash on Instagram about it. 🙄 How refreshing though to see a woman-only race actually put out a statement like this though.

Unfortunately I'm already running another ultramarathon a couple of weeks before this, but I'm definitely going to volunteer to marshall if I can: www.sheracestrailseries.com/news/transgender-women-and-the-sheraces-trail-series?fbclid=PAY2xjawHSmBlleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABpqSLI3UDiMQ-X-TQpZrrthESOIS47KZwrwHxp9U9765Nko4aq99TYw_zhg_aem__teyn-M34TeQy5zd1RtNEA

Interesting statement. Using all the ideological language but sticking to their guns of fairness and inclusion for biological women.

Very interesting!

It's not at all how I would have written it but parts of it are excellent. They're really trying to be balanced aren't they. It won't matter. They'll be written off as hateful bigots by some people for anything less than full capitulation. But hopefully also gain new support and interest.

That’s great that they’re doing this and their reasons are clear.

I’d worry that “that is, individuals who were assigned female at birth and continue to identify as female” would fail to exclude males like Imane Khelif. But maybe the statement is clear enough in its entirety.

I agree, it's not using direct enough language for my liking but I understand that there's a delicate PR angle to consider here and anything considered "exclusionary" would be seized on immediately and used against them.

And yes, @WhatterySquash I agree here too but that really is such an edge case I can't imagine it occuring here. There isn't a big emphasis on a "winner" for this event so hopefully those applying that might usually podium might apply elsewhere.

I particularly like point 1

"We want to facilitate a female-only race so that competitive women can race against each other without the presence of male participants diluting their race-day experience."

my bolding, but it what's at the heart of it, it's why we need all men out of all women's sport.

Well done and a thank you to them for taking a stand.

I think they have used language that recognises GI but firmly draws the line that this is for women only. They are clear it is lawful and not transphobic.

I don’t like “cis” or “assigned at birth” but appreciate they are taking a softer approach. The important thing is protecting this event for women.

We are acutely aware that transgender women are already a marginalised minority group and that restricting their participation conflicts with the goals of objective two above.

Not really, they may be a minority but they are not really marginalised and there are plenty of men's races available to them.

I think if you insist you can only race in the category of your “acquired gender” - and you can’t do that because it’s unfair on the females who actually belong in that category - then you’re marginalising yourself really. TW should be excluded from female sports categories on the basis of being male - it is reasonable, legal and fair exclusion of males, not marginalisation of trans people.

I've put a positive comment on the Instagram post. Good for them.

Out of curiosity i thought women could compete with men in ultra races? Does it not happen much?

Of course there are a lot of open races (they do usually have first female and first male though). Having a female only event is important to some women for a variety of reasons.

Sophie Powers was on Woman’s Hour recently talking about She Races and why it's important for women to have the opportunity to race in single sex events. She was very clear on the issues, so I'm hoping she'll stand her ground on this.

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0025w54?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

Weird that they are getting hassle for it, they are just applying UKA rules - why are they being singled out over all the other races that apply UKA rules?

That's a lot of words to say 'Oi, actual women, only'.

What confused me was that the interviewee seemed to think that people like Caster Semenya and Imane Khelif are women, even though they are biologically male.
Why?

Yeah this is how I'd frame it too

Otherwise it just propagates the myth that trans people have to deceive and disregard boundaries. Which is really saying trans people have to be abusive. And this simply isn't true. There are people with trans identities who are honest about who they are and who respect single sex spaces.

Exactly my thought.

They'll catch up eventually.

But they have to say it like that to make sure it doesn’t leave any gaps.

Well. Maybe so. It's good they're making a full statement with reasoning and working.

Just - who has the energy for all that?

God the comments on the Instagram post are unhinged. So many handmaidens, it's really sad. Interestingly the only poster actually openly supporting single sex spaces is a man.

All the usual "women's rights are transwomens rights", "trans people are the most marginalised group", and constant use of the phrase "cos woman" comments are just brain numbing.

I'm not and will never be their target audience - I hate running 😂 - but bloody good for the, I really hope they don't fold on this issue, it's too important.

I understand what they are trying to do with the statement (and I can see why judging by the comments on Instagram), but I think they would have been better off being more forthright as it comes off as being a bit wishy washy.

I also don't like the concession that the portion of women they surveyed who want it to be a female only event do so because of an underlying transphobia. I mean, it might, but I think it is much more likely that these women want a fair race without the presence of men. They should have just focused on the importance of fairness and integrity, underpinned by the research.

For all the loudmouthed virtue signallers shouting but 'transwomen are women", I bet there will be loads of people reading the statement and nodding along with it (but too terrified to declare that publicly).

there are still big issues with participation rates and so on but theoretically women can compete with men in very very long multi day, eg well upwards of 100 mile, events.

in a 50k race like this one the male speed advantage is still far too great.

In my personal life and acquaintances, even people who fully go along with TWAW hesitate or disagree when it comes to sports. It’s incredible how “males should be in female sports” has become a hill so many will die on because they’ve been led up a ludicrous garden path by a bunch of lies and emotional blackmail - because they think it’s progressive to make sport unfair for women. Just mindblowing. How can they look at the males who do this and not think they must be selfish, misogynistic arseholes to even want to?

Re the insta response- it's actually a very few people who are commenting critically.

The 'likes' are at over 1000. That's a great response.

I'd tend to ignore, the wee righteous mob will get bored and move on soon.

Engaging only encourages them - the position has been explained at length and clearly. The law supports it. Most people support it. (Most people just won't say so out loud).