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

I think some have been deleted? There seemed to be a lot more along the lines of FFS 🙄 earlier.

Both Instagram and tiktok don't reflect reality whatsoever.

That wouldn't surprise me @BeBraveLittlePenguin

Social media bares such scant reflection to real life that comments must be being deleted all the time.

It's scary how they can influence people.

Well of course! It's very traumatic for some men to read that women don't want them in their spaces.

Some have been 'hidden' by instagram but you can still see them if you click on it. There are a refreshing number challenging the TRAs, particularly the male ones.

Scroll up and down for the events policy in female specific measures for participation

https://www.oureaevents.com/equality-diversity-and-inclusion-policy/#female-only-races

Agree. Someone is deleting comments. There were several perfectly polite comments saying that women didn't agree with the policy, they've gone.

Leaving up all the dick-celebratory ones.

Cut and paste response to expressing views... my sister got the same:
"Thank you for taking the time to reach out to us about the SheRACES female-only policy. We appreciate that the change may not be reflective of everyone’s views, but we are reverting to the existing policy used for many years on all the other Ourea Events races. This policy was developed in conjunction with transgender athletes and has been viewed as fair, inclusive and reasonable. Namely, this welcomes transgender women to participate in the female category on a ‘non-competitive’ basis or in a separate non-competitive category.

Thank you again for your feedback. We have offered everyone entered into the SheRACES trail series a full refund."

I don't view it as fair or responsible and I'm not impressed by being mindlessly inclusive to the detriment of others.

Their transgender participation policy has been taken down pending update. Prior to this week it said (and I'm paraphrasing because I can't read it right now, but I did look at it last week) that in all Ourea events (the wider trail company who also runs SheRaces) the policy is:

• Transmen can run in male category if they want
• Transwomen can run in the female category but only as 'non-scorers' - i.e not eligible for medals or for a 'place' in the field. So e.g. if a transwoman was 5th 'woman' then actually they would not be awarded that and the woman who would have been 6th if the TW had got a place keeps her 5th place etc.

I actually think that is a reasonable compromise - it does stop TW taking women's places and medals, whilst being inclusive.

My concern is whether:
a) the current backlash will result in this being changed; and
b) what this means for things other than results. They say 'female only changing rooms' and 'female only toilets' etc - but will these things now also be open to TW or will they actually just be for females?

I also think it is deeply disappointing that there are a gazillion mixed-sex trail races, and it is disappointing that when a company set out to provide a single-sex one for the sex that is very-much under-represented in trail running, it has just become yet another mixed sex event because of push back from some males and handmaidens. I was going to enter the Surrey event this week but hey ho. I'm don't think I'll bother with the revised date as there are plenty of other mixed sex races I can do so its USP has gone

@Run2468 - now you've changed your policy I won't be entering - really disappointed that an organisation that said it would have female only facilities is presumably now only too happy to open them up to any bloke that wants to say he's feeling like a woman......

What an absolute shitshow this is turning out to be, I feel so bad for the organisers to be honest.

They've been bullied into changing their policy, postponed two of the three races, and it STILL isn't good enough for the TRAs.

QueerRunnings and Mary-Ann Ochota (two accounts with huge followings, responsible for a lot of the negative attention prior to the policy change) have now both issued videos saying that it isn't good enough that transwomen can enter non-competitively.

And the organisers have had to turn off comments on their recent post because it got so vile (to be fair, that was also coming from the gender critical side, some of the comments were not helping our side and were just personal attacks).

I'm just gutted for the organisers.

We know from experience that compromise is never enough, there must be full capitulation and twaw.

They'd have been better off sticking to their guns.

Hopefully they'll have learned the hard way that there's no point negotiating with terrorists.

They seem to have deleted old posts. I couldn't see anything regarding the races further back than Wednesday. No indication there was ever a different policy or that two races got cancelled.

I’ve just had a peruse at their website. This new policy makes a mockery of what the races are all about.

There's a huge difference between allowing men to live out their fantasy of "being a woman" by having an "F" next to their name in a mixed sex event as opposed to letting males into an event billed as entirely female only with all that implies in terms of toilets and changing and just the whole atmosphere.

I think non-competitive males being allowed to pretend to be in the women's category in a mixed sex race for the sake of their delusion is an ok compromise. I think it's bloody stupid to feel the need to compromise but hey ho. But letting them into female only races and to use female facilities absolutely impacts the experience of women in order to pander to a man. It's basic male-supremacy in action and I am aghast, or I would be if this hadn't been happening ad nauseum for fucking years now, that an organisation that purports to advocate for women is doing this.

It's all so fucking stupid. It's so obvious that it's all about not letting women have nice things but people refuse to see it.

Fuck being kind, bring back reality. And start centering WOMEN when advocating for WOMEN.

I wonder if they’ve thought through all the implications? Yes, there will be men at the races already - partners of competitors etc, so they’ll already have male toilets etc. However, what will their policy be on the trans-women using the female toilets and facilities etc.

I haven’t seen today’s comments before the whole thing got deleted but I did notice yesterday that there was no pleasing the TRAs, they already hijacked it and then on top of that they didn’t like the policy of TW not being able to enter as competitive.

What they should have done was left it alone all along and just said, look, we are offering 3 races in line with the UK Athletics rules, there are almost 800 other races this year for TW to enter if they want to, these are 3 races.
The mistake they made was giving in to the bullying.

Out of interest what are people’s experiences with TW turning up to race? I’ve not entered any races yet but surely they must be pretty rare considering there’s not many in the general population? Some areas of the country will have a lot more than others though. What’s your experiences?

It's not just them. I got an email from "Women’s Run Series" who say "We are dedicated to increasing female and ethnic minority participation in running events, ensuring that everyone, regardless of background, feels welcome and supported."
Well, my excitement and interest were short lived because of course it's not actually an event for women.

Well, I'm not sure when Lauren Jeska will be out of jail.

If someone sets up a race company with female only races and has the courage to see it through then I think they will get a lot of applications.

Eeek, just Googled
I’m new to running so I hadn’t heard of that case.

The toilets and changing facilities are likely to be the least of the issues in this instance. If it's like other trail races I've done, the toilets will be of the portable variety and unisex, or behind a bush out on the route (which will be on public trails and footpaths), and participants will have to choose between getting changed in the open air or getting changed inside their vehicle.

But I think that was part of the point of these races and the accreditation with SheRaces (or is it SheRuns) that races can get... that one of the barriers to entry for women is having to piss and change outdoors and so races would endeavour to provide better facilities to enable women to feel more comfortable.