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

This is not how park run works. There is no way to police this.

😂

If it’s a competition. Against yourself why do they place you against everyone else? It would just be your time versus your previous times.

It will be carried forward as reserves.

Money can be taken out of the company as expenses or salary.

I agree, if

“parkrun is just for fun, the only race is against yourself.”

Then why do they need to run with hundreds of others if it's only about themselves. It's dismissive and selfish but then the whole 'only race is against yourself 'meme is also selfish.

If Parkrun has a category for women then they need to only put the times submitted by women into it. All this talk about it can't be policed, is just whataboutery, it's the fact that Parkrun won't make their women's category only for women that's the problem. If they're allowing it to be a mixed sex category then they should just say so and stop prevaricating, that way it would be clear that women have yet again had something taken off them. It's the fact that they've done that but won't admit to having done that, is what makes this so bad.

It's interesting how much this excuse is trotted out to basically let off entitled men who are being entitled men ie oh well we can't stop them so we just have to let them have what they want all the time.

There is no way to police loads of things in society, we (used to) have a social contract where we trust for example able bodied ppl not to turn up and take all the parking spaces for ppl with disabilities or young ppl not to invade social groups for older people. There would be no way to stop them doing that either but somehow ppl don't queue up to hand wave and say "oh but it's sooooo hard so we just have to let them do what they want".

its only men larping as women who get a pass and indeed encouragement. Park run do absolutely zero to discourage men not to register their times as females, all their messaging is very much "hey men! Do what you like! Don't worry about the women, we can barely hear them anyway"

And yet people are expected to be honest about their age. All that is being asked is that there is a category for female runners and the same level of honesty is expected when declaring eligibility.

Exactly

I mean technically there’s no real way to police:
i) men using women’s toilets
ii) men pretending to be women in other settings
the list goes on

Doesn’t make it right though does it??? There are laws that ought to protect us to some degree

Some of the employees at parkrun HQ earn 6 figure salaries.

It is a force for good on the whole and relies on volunteers on so many levels. I don’t think anyone is asking volunteers to police anything and of course this wouldn’t work anyway.

Personally I think the inclusion of trans people trumps the fairness with results. I get the arguments the other way though and wish that trans people would change their minds about this and all register in their birth gender, prefer not to say or another gender identity. But that isn’t going to happen any time soon. It would make a lot more sense if the registration was by sex with a prefer not to say option but I think making this change would also lead to protests. Plenty of the volunteers feel very strongly about this (on both side of the fence). There is the argument that it would be outing - the results are public and if you don’t declare a gender there is no age grade listed.

The planned protest is quite nuanced. The want people to join their running group within the parkrun data. People can join up to 5 groups and the primary group is listed on the results next to your name. If you know where to look you can find all the people in your group who ran or walked in a particular week. I think they are hoping to be one of the largest groups. Even if they achieve this it will not be that obvious - I guess they will need to put out more press releases to publicise it. Here is an example of the sort of thing they might generate: The Stragglers consolidated club report

It used to be all fun and games until men decided to put their big hairy feet on women's rights. Of course it's competitive, men usually are. Women are less so, but that doesn't mean they should be brushed under the carpet to make way for men. If you give on this, then you might as well give up on all women's rights. The line keeps getting eroded further and further back until there's nothing left.

I hope there's a large turn out!

Personally I think the inclusion of trans people trumps the fairness with results

How?

If you prioritise one group over another (and in this case it’s very specifically men - women who identify as trans have to make the choice between not being competitive - which is in itself outing - and competing in their sex), you aren’t being fair, but you aren’t being inclusive either.

but I think making this change would also lead to protests.

So?

Personally I think the inclusion of trans people trumps the fairness with results.

Trans people are already included, they just need to register with their biological sex and stop demanding that their feelz trump everyone else's rights to fairness.

How - just because I think inclusivity is more important in this case than competition. But as I say I understand and also agree with the other side of this.

So - No one wants more protests at parkrun. The volunteers would have to deal with this. You know how transactivists behave at protests.

I also know that this doesn’t mean the most aggressive side should ‘win’.

If you know nothing about parkrun (an apolitical...)

Of course Parkrun is not 'apolitical', is it? It's chosen, intentionally, a political position that favours men with gender identities over the entire female half of the population based on political ideology.

As with 'inclusive', I don't think that word means what you think it means.

As for the ranting about 'if you want actual fairness and equality and inclusion for women you have to set up your own organisation......

that is what this entire thread is about.

Ffs.

Stop using the silly word "inclusive" because we all know that means excluding women and benefitting men.

You are not being fair nor kind.

Personally I think the inclusion of trans people trumps the fairness with results.

That is not 'inclusion', is it? Inclusion means everybody, removing barriers for all, not just trans people. It's not equality either; this is a solution that removes equality. And you're not talking about 'trans people' because this is solely about men in women's races. So in fact you're talking about the importance of subordinating women and removing fairness or equality of consideration for them, in order to provide a desired emotional experience to men.

Which is on a binary, sexed basis, and would in fact therefore be a form of male supremacism, wouldn't it?

And this is even if those women set up an organisation of their own that in no way affects those men having parkrun where they can walk all over the women's races all day. Do they really need everything all the time?

Please don’t call me silly just because I can see a middle ground. Loads of trans people would feel excluded if they changed the registration as suggested. Of course they wouldn’t actually be excluded (in my opinion) but they would feel that they weren’t welcome any more.

Everyone should feel welcome at parkrun - yes that does include competitive women. There is no solution that will achieve this.

As for the 'it can't be policed' -

I am always a bit surprised that activists always want to insist on this negative generalisation that trans people can be expected to be dishonest, and this is too big a problem to ever resist.

Is the argument that dishonesty is a fundamental aspect of transgenderism?

I would say it's probably an arguable point if you want to defend it, but again, massive negative generalisation which isn't inside the guidelines, and it sounds a bit transphobic doesn't it?

Why would they be excluded?

They don’t have to state their sex if they don’t want to.

Of course there are solutions that allow women access to fair sports.

You aren’t arguing for a middle ground. You are arguing to prioritise what males want over what is fair to females.

From what you're saying, your 'middle ground' is just 'take stuff away from women and favour men'.

Yes, that is a bit silly. And on a women's rights forum it's probably a bit unrealistic to expect that to go unchallenged.

Of course there's a solution, there's a whole Supreme Court Judgment on it, plus extensive guidance just come into force, that provides actual middle ground and equality for all involved. It's to make sex mean sex, and to provide additional categories and resources for those who do not wish to identify with or use resources for their biological sex.

And again - this is a NEW and additional thing, alongside Parkrun which permits men to self identify into women's times and categories. Not replacing it. Additional to it.

In the OP - Reality Rules is a running club. It's not changing parkrun.

So why do men and activist supporters need to dominate and control this one too?

Why can't women have one resource that lets them have actual, fair, sex based competition? Why is that any skin off a man's nose?

So, why do women have to back down and concede? Why cant men?

I didn’t for one minute expect to be unchallenged. But let’s not insult each other. I know that looking for a middle ground in this subject gets shot down from both sides. That is why we don’t hear voices from the middle very much and the middle ground is probably the majority. I have actually made lots of points that agree with they general feeling on this board but just feel that parkrun is perhaps a place where making everyone feel welcome is the most important. As I say there is a really strong feeling from lots of the volunteers that parkrun has this right at the moment. HQ are between a rock and a hard place.

'Silly' is a very mild and polite way of describing sexism.