Reality Rules Parkrun Launch 3 October 2026

[IwantToRetire]

Today was another Parkrun Saturday and like every weekend the achievements by women was demoted by men running in the female category.

We are hoping to change this! In only a few weeks time, we will debut Reality Rules Runners UK at Parkrun. We hope that many hundreds (hopefully thousands) of you will join us to send a clear and strong statement to Parkrun about the huge support there is for fairness and sex-based categories at their events.

All sports events are responsible for putting on fair events. This includes free, volunteer run, community events like Parkrun.

So please tell people about Reality Rules Runners UK, as we are hoping to attract lots more supporters before our debut at Parkrun on 3 October.

Thank you! 🙏

https://realityrulesrunnersuk.substack.com/p/another-parkrun-down-only-a-few-weeks

Came across this by chance, so dont know more than this!

They are also on X for anyone on X https://x.com/RRRunnersUK

Ummm, I’m a widow and no woman on here has ever attacked me….. I’m perfectly fine with women calling themselves trans widows. I mean, if I have to accept a man call in himself a “transwoman”, why should I not accept a women calling herself a “trans widow”?

Well, there are "another gender" or "prefer not to say " options. And if parkrun requested that male runners should use the male category or one of these 2 options, I doubt many people would still have an issue.

Excellent! I am not a morning person but I haul myself out of bed to do parkrun every Saturday now. Knowing I am running against the clock makes me push myself each week.

It’s a good excuse to see different places too and I’ve done them in several different countries. I do love parkrun - I just don’t love the fact that the women’s category is currently meaningless - but I hope they will change that soon. The gender category issue is mentioned in their annual report as one of five risks they’ve identified so we know it’s on their radar.

I think they will change the categories at some point, whether they do through their own volition or because they are forced to.

Let us know how you get on if you do end up going!

That was me and no, not because they were being “aggressive”. And I didn’t “accuse” them. I wondered if they were a man or were trans because I couldn’t understand why a woman would be so invested in arguing with women to keep men in women’s categories. Also, the tone of the disagreement was dripping with misogyny and the insults in the posts were akin to those that I’ve received on social media from Neils/Grahams/Simons simply for asking for fairness for women and girls. But no, it is a woman apparently who is happy to throw her own sex under the bus.

Of course there are some women who will do this. But I was curious at their motivation for coming onto a women’s rights forum to defend men’s rights. Usually when people do that they are men displaying their misogyny. In this case it is internalised misogyny or they have skin in the game because they have trans children.

Its the misogyny. Not so much the aggressiveness.

I tend not to assume the sex of posters on an anonymous site, but you make an interesting point that certain behaviours are more associated with men, including on the internet.

Is this nature or nurture? Who knows? However I would still contest that being critical of gendered expectations is fundamental to feminism.

So you are placing men feeling welcome over women feeling valued.

I think if you can only imagine a man or someone with a trans child standing up for trans people or wanting to make a community event as inclusive as possible, that’s an echo chamber problem.

Outside of this forum, loads of brilliant, kind, clever women support trans rights, use the pronouns their colleagues ask them to happily because they want people to feel comfortable and safe, etc.

Oh god, not the “it’s not the Olympics” argument! If I had £1 every time that’s been trotted out, I could sue parkrun myself.

These are such tired arguments. So because it’s not elite sport, women and girls don’t deserve fairness and a meaningful category? Got it.

You're being perfectly polite and people are responding in kind.

I’m saying at a community event people feeling welcome and included is the priority; it’s not a race or a competition so being able to compare speeds within categories is secondary.

Why would not being able to see where you rank against other women make you feel ‘not valued?’ That’s weird.

I think if it’s the race or competitive part that’s most important to you, then parkrun is just the wrong choice of event. Join a running club or do an actual race.

I have a bingo card for the tired parkrun arguments and “it’s not the Olympics” and “genital inspections” and “it’s just a fun run” are top of the list. Heard them all these last few weeks from the Neils/Simons/Grahams who jump on every post that Claire Hallissey or Mara Yamauchi puts out to defend men taking part in the women’s category.

Commercial races cost £££ these days. Parkrun is free and receives significant public money, so should treat all runners fairly.

So why have categories at all?

Oh my god, do you really believe what you are writing? I belong to a running club. We do training runs. We do not do races. All these people saying join a running club miss the point of running clubs.

Why should women self exclude? All we’re asking for is a fair category like the men have. This has been explained many times in the thread. The men’s category means something. The women’s category is meaningless.

It has also been explained that many races also do self ID. The recent Great North Run had a biological sex category for the elite women and there were gender self ID categories for the rest of the field. So telling us to just go and do a race does not solve the problem.

Why should women have to go and do something else because parkrun won’t have fair categories? People like you are placing the feelings of a few men above fairness for all women. Why?

Its fair enough if Canadanian is arguing for entirely mixed sex, scrapping categories altogether.

I mean I think it would be shit for women but at least its logical.

Yes, in my mind, parkrun has two options:
Scrap all published results and send individual results only so that it is definitively not a race

or reinstate biological sex categories as it was prior to 2019.

And you’re still misunderstanding what Parkrun is, and its purpose.

It’s not about self excluding because you’re a woman, it’s about not choosing a community event if what you’re interested in doing is a competitive event. They’re just different types of event and you can choose the one that suits your goals.

Ooh, I didn't realise it was.possible to sign up for Parkrun under a pseudonym.

realityrulesrunnersuk.substack.com/p/join-us

And you’re missing the point of parkrun. It has a small ‘p’ by the way. And I don’t think you know much about running clubs if you think we join up to race each other twice a week.

Why are you so invested in putting the needs of a few men above fairness for women and girls?

I would be happier with this than with excluding trans people (I.e. by making them feel unwelcome / unsafe because they have to out themself to take part etc).

Overall I think it would be a disproportionate response though (I don’t think a problem exists, but even those that do think there’s a problem can’t pretend it’s something many park runners care about a great deal - 450,000 people do a park run each week globally; it would be disproportionate to change something they (including lots of women) are all happy with because a few hundred people make a complaint.

Someone signed up with the name “Bjorna Man” which made me laugh.

Yet parkrun changed the categories in 2019 following feedback from a very small minority of trans people. So that was ok then?

But it’s not ok to listen to women and girls now who are very unhappy with what parkrun did? A lot of people have been very vocal about this since the change. I just don’t think you have been listening.

So a few hundred women matter less than a handful of trans identifying men?