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

'The trustees consider the principal risks to The Charity and its subsidiaries
to be in the following areas:
• Gender Categorisation
• Funding
• Digital resilience and cyber security
• Safeguarding
• Data protection

Gender Categorisation

During the year, the UK Supreme Court
issued a significant ruling concerning
the legal definition of sex under equality
legislation. As a provider of inclusive
community events, parkrun continues to
monitor the evolving legal and regulatory
landscape to ensure that its policies remain
compliant with applicable legislation
while supporting broad participation.
The principal risks arising from this area
include legal and regulatory uncertainty,

potential reputational impacts, and
differing stakeholder expectations
regarding the balance between inclusion,
fairness and legal compliance.
The Board continues to review developments
to ensure that parkrun’s approach
remains consistent with its charitable
objectives, values and legal compliance.'

Page 35 of the 2025 Annual report.

https://www.parkrun.com/about/the-organisation/annual-report/

So in that case, you could argue that getting rid of all rankings would make everyone feel welcome and included no? If it’s not competitive, why have rankings? Why have age categories? Why not let everyone just run in one big group? The fact there are rankings and categories shows it is competitive doesn’t it? Otherwise why have them?

If it's so petty, why do the 'gender' supporters care?

We assume that people are honest. That is how these things work.

When men say that running in the men's category will make them unhappy, the world must be moved, language and laws competely re-engineered, women's safety, privacy and dignity sidelined, to ensure they are able to be put into the women's category.

When women complain, it's 'petty' and 'pathetic' and 'ridiculous'.

And again, the reason we have women's sport is because men, having higher levels of testosterone, which contribute to enormous differences in size, muscle strength, gait, energy, etc, are enormously more advantaged than women.

Whatever their 'identity', this is the biological fact. Even if they are taking exogenous hormones, this will not affect their size, skeleton, already developed muscles, etc.

Imagine cheating that fucking blatantly and then insulting the women who complain.

"So you still won't have groups determined by sex but you will be happier because the label is a less accurate reflection of what it claims to represent for a fun run?"

Huh?

Because they are usually entitled little men who like to win against women because it makes them feel bigger.

In this entire thread and elsewhere, no logical argument has ever been presented.

I'm glad you said that, because I still didn't get it even after reading it a few times!

These fun runs don't test anyone for taking performance enhancing drugs either. They don't even insist you complete the distance unaided. Because they're fun runs.

Well quite. Can these people even hear themselves, in their eagerness to coddle entitled men.

Can you use a motorbike?

If you think women are experiencing something equivalent to racism because trans women are allowed to take part alongside them in a non-competitive community event then I don’t think there’s much space to have a sensible discussion with you.

Using gender acknowledges that a group may contain people who are different sexes. Using sex when participants aren't tested is likely inaccurate.

No, although you can use aids like mobility scooters, and your time would be logged the same 🤷‍♀️ and to be clear, I think that’s great. I don’t think we should exclude disabled people, and I don’t think we exclude trans people.

Many people run with prams etc, because it’s not a race.

So why have ranking at all?

Competitive fun runs - you missed out the bit about competing against others through published timings. Unfortunately, it's not even a fair competition as the sexes are mixed in the gender category.

This parkrun issue is really important to TRAs as they think it gives them a little wriggle room on the non-competitive, fun run aspect. Their stance is still profoundly dishonest because of the timing element. Times should be given by sex, not gender, so that women aren’t having to compare their times with men pretending to be women.

It’s really very very simple.

Competitions have strict rules governing sex/PEDs/... and make accurate timings. Parkrun does none of these things.

Prams don't make you faster. No one does it on a bike, horse or e-scooter.

I think I'll put my parkrun gender as male and my parkrun age as 69. Reckon I'd get a pretty good placing in the VM65-69.

It's the osteo you see. Makes my man gender much older than it would be as a woman.

Let’s say Eileen is a transwoman. Eileen registers for Parkrun as a woman. On the day Eileen runs everyone can see that Eileen is male. No one knows that Eileen is supposed to be a woman. The only point at which Eileen ‘s ‘womanhood’ matters is when all those women who finished behind Eileen find themselves one place down the rankings. Eileen meanwhile finds themselves further up the rankings for the category they are in (women) than they would have done had they been in the correct category (men). Eileen feels great. Women are cheated.

But yea, it’s totally not about prioritising male feelings.

Parkrun issues rankings and age/gradings by gender. It’s meaningful for men and meaningless for women. Why should women not receive fair results too?

Parkrun receives huge amounts of public money to increase participation of women and girls. They can’t show that they are doing this if the category is meaningless.

They wriggle anywhere that they think they can paint women as trivial or petty for wanting something that is sinehow also a critical, almost life or death matter for the transwomen who also want it.

Schrodinger's Race. Sits next to Schrodinger's Bogs, Schrodinger's Bookclub and all those other trophies for beating on women in the TRA display cabinet.

They time you, publish your results, show your time in comparison to others - competitive element.

They mix the sexes in the gender category - unfair (to women) competitive element.

Take away any element of competition, remove the mixed sex part of that category, and it becomes both non-competitive, fair - and fun.