Save Women's Sports: ParkrunUK YouTube video November 2025

[Helleofabore]

https://x.com/marayamauchi/status/1988217357043724386?s=20

Well done Mara and all those involved.

Some very clear points mentioned:

Mara says, "I'm here with a lot of my fellow sex realists. We are quietly protesting against parkrun's gender self ID categories. Any male if he says he's a woman or even if he doesn't say he's a woman, any male is welcome in the female category."

"Official results are published every week in descending order of speed. The rankings mean in reality it is a race and that is unfair for women and girls."

And then

"You can call it anything you like, but the facts of Parkrun are, measured courses, start and finish line."

Other brave women also keep raising the valid points such as:

"it's a race if you run it like a race"

and

"That opportunity to treat it like a race should be there for everybody because it is there for men"

We have had this discussion on MN numerous times now where people remind us that Parkrun have stated that they are 'not a race' and are not competitive events. However, if there is any ranking at all, and any records kept and/or published, this makes the events a competitive event.

I hope that Parkrun actually starts to listen now instead of their constant denial. Either remove any ranking activity completely or understand that denying it is a competition while it remains competitive doesn't remove the competitive nature of the event in reality.

Agree.

But the women who are campaigning just want men to be told that they have to identify themselves correctly and as pp said for Parkrun to disqualify if they are discovered to be lying, and it’s probably because those women do want their results, without men cheating them into a lower place on the board.

Lauren Jeska, the male transgender runner, who is in prison for the attempted murder of Ralph Knibbs, the former HR head of UK Athletics, holds the Parkrun female record at Aberystwyth, which he set in 2012. Jeska is still being held in HMP Foston Hall, a women's prison.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauren_Jeska

https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/feminist-activists-outraged-as-womens-parkrun-record-holder-revealed-to-be-trans-DWzYT6_2/

But the women who are campaigning just want men to be told that they have to identify themselves correctly and as pp said for Parkrun to disqualify if they are discovered to be lying, and it’s probably because those women do want their results, without men cheating them into a lower place on the board.

Yes, I totally agree with them and would be campaigning with them if I lived nearby.

I'm trying to think about what I'd do if I was in charge of parkrun. If I was running a county XC champs event this would be easy - DQ anyone not following the rules.

But parkrun is different. Results have to be easy to process by local volunteer teams, and the whole event relies on honesty rather than enforcement. The results are mostly great, but they also get messed up often, and people are pretty relaxed about that given the nature of the event. And yes, its competitive and thats important, but I'd also describe it as one of the best mental health interventions out there. I want people who have been caught up in the gender nonsense to be able to come along and have a run and a chat and enjoy the goal of working towards milestones and not be put off by published results saying they are really M or F. Thats why I think an option for those people to opt out of results showing sex may be useful.

But you also need a robust way to deal with cheats - the Jeska example is shocking but couldn't be a better example. Its not fair for local teams to deal with this. HQ need a mechanism to deal with the very small number of people who have put the wrong sex info on their registrations when they have good evidence this is incorrect and it is causing a material impact. They will already have a process to do this, for example if people register with obscene names.

But parkrun is different. Results have to be easy to process by local volunteer teams, and the whole event relies on honesty rather than enforcement.

no. This is just wishy-washy excuse bollocks.

They either live up to "it's a fun run" or they come out and say "we don't care if we upset women we are TWAW cunts"

one or the other, not stupid bollocks wishy-washy "but the volunteeeers"

Ok, so you are COO, what do you do to fix it?

I think I would update policy to include something like:
"parkrun age results are based on biological sex (not modified by a GRC), you must register your sex and age data accurately. If you do not wish to disclose your age or sex choose 'prefer not to say'. You will receive an overall place and time on the results but no sex or age based results. If we have evidence that you have recorded your age or sex data incorrectly we will contact you to ask for your birth certificate to prove age/sex. If you do not reply/are unable to do this we will change your record to 'prefer not to say' until you are able to provide proof of age/sex."

I would also want to consider how a violent man like Jeska may react to this. He is a credible threat to staff and event volunteers. I'd need to consider my duty to their safety.

I'd also want to think about how this could encourage vexatious reporting of cheating and how that could impact on local teams and HQ.

And I'd probably want to reiterate that we welcome people however they identify, whatever their political views. I wouldn't want anyone who identifies as the opposite sex or NB to feel unwelcome.

Quite, they could get rid of “Lauren”’s for a start.

That all sounds fair.

This.

I think maybe they should stop publishing times altogether, then all the smug men smugging about how “it’s just a fun run” will be proved right. Have your fun run lads.

Has the new female Parkrun CEO said anything on the subject?

This is such a good idea.

I suppose the issue boils down to.

1. There a lot of women running parkrun who don't want to be compared to men of any description.
2. There are a fair number of runners who are bothered about their time but not their actual category ranking as they are competing against themselves (eg a lot of half marathoners like to have a speedy parkrun the day before a long run)
3. There are a smaller number of runners, male and female, who like to have a competitive league table of where they come against the rest of the field. For juniors this can lead to opportunities to participate elsewhere.
4. There are an even smaller number of men who want to run as women and cannot accept that they can run as men in pink leggings and lipstick. This category are basically cheats who want to grab the women's rankings as they aren't good enough to compete as men.

So if you are parkrun which group is the most important? The answer should be 1. Therefore protect them by publishing a list with no name or sex in alphabetical order. It accomodates 1 and 2. The biggest problem then is category 3 (as no one should be remotely fussed about what category 4 want or think. I imagine that most in category 3 are UKA registered club runners so maybe there should be a way of recording parkrun results with a UKA number against their names?

Pressed to soon - but I don't parkrun anymore because of the way they treat women. I fall into category 2 so I can run the route on another day with my Garmin. Less fun than with others around but still doable.

The message is clear, we care more about men who want to call themselves women, than women. Same as the girl guides.

Failure to reflect on the reasons for segregation ... labelling it as bigoted. Seeing instead that protection of males who wish to colonise and define womanhood is more important than understanding why single sex spaces, definition and support is crucial to ensure women have equal access to resources, wealth, share of voice and power in all spheres. If we can not define, measure, analyse and support women, we can not strive for equality.

Inclusion focuses on inclusion of males in female spaces, we see very little of the huge number of female to male trans people.. is this because they are so successful and fit in so well into our society as male, that they do not need any support.. in which case maybe we need to all identify as male and sweep the centuries of oppression away, by choosing to be male.

so continue to pander to the men at the expense of women.
slow fucking handclap

I'm not seeing it - where is the pandering? I'm worrying now I've got a massive female socialisation induced blindspot. Can someone help point this out to me?!

because it is not clear, and it is too wordy.

It needs to be: you will register by biological sex.

that is it

I am a keen parkrunner and I don't think this is difficult at all. There's definitely an option to not be listed as male or female, because I've seen someone in my local parkrun listings with a female name but not listed as female.

We don't go round asking people for birth certificates to prove age, so we don't need to ask people to show their genitals to prove sex. All we need is people to play fair and register in the right category.

And if someone obviously male-bodied gets a course record, then the event team can email parkrun HQ and tell them. It doesn't mean that tall butch ladies will get challenged - we know what a butch lady looks like and it's not like a bloke. Then HQ can remove the record.

One of the elite ladies Louise Small seems to be on a bit of a challenge to run as many female course records as possible. I wish she'd go to the events where there's a male holding the course record but I don't suppose it's that easy to know who they are. I wonder how Mara knows who they all are.

I'd also want to think about how this could encourage vexatious reporting of cheating and how that could impact on local teams and HQ

It won't. We really do know what women and men look like and it will be blindingly obvious in most cases when a male bodied person runs as a woman. And if it isn't blindingly obvious, nobody will notice anyway.

I'm sure it wouldn't from you, or the women campaigning on this. But, whenever you create a method for reporting people, there will always be a small number of people who will abuse it for their own reasons.

In my experience small policy changes in big operations can have big unintended consequences if implementation isn't thought through properly. I think if you are serious about wanting an organisation to make a change you have to understand their operation, the consequences of any changes for them, and as part of your campaigning help them address those concerns.

I think the only people who would notice would be the regulars at that parkrun and perhaps an existing course record holder who might think "who was that, I've not heard of her" but unless that person ran at that parkrun again they wouldn't know. I think the chances of vexatious complaints would be vanishingly unlikely.

I said upthread that I wonder how Mara knows who these transwomen are. I only know of one and that particular person has given up the records.

Mara probably knows about transwomen, because she competes in Parkruns and she is very much aware of Lauren Jeska, the male transgender runner, who is in prison for the attempted murder of Ralph Knibbs, the former HR head of UK Athletics, holds the Parkrun female record at Aberystwyth, which he set in 2012. Jeska is still being held in HMP Foston Hall, a women's prison.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauren_Jeska

https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/feminist-activists-outraged-as-womens-parkrun-record-holder-revealed-to-be-trans-DWzYT6_2/

They are known because Mara will likely be sent the information from
others. I expect she will also check that information’s veracity with people who will be tracking this in each of the parkruns. I hope she checks it.

Jeska is in jail so he's not "winning" parkruns at the moment. I was wondering who the others are.