Parkrun comments giving me the rage

[ChapmanFarm]

If I have to read one more time 'but parkrun is just meant to be fun' or 'you are only racing against yourself and your best time' I'm going to scream.

Why does that only apply to women?

If it's just a bit of fun there is absolutely no need for trans identified men to get a time or position either. They have the option to register as another gender or to just run and not register at all.

If it's all just fun and we moaning women should shut up, why do these arguments only apply one way?

No one is saying they can't run in whatever clothing/identity they like. Just that they shouldn't be recorded as women.

But somehow this is still wrong.

I thought I'd peaked long ago but this one is giving me the absolute rage.

And yet... because it uses the terminology that relates to female sex categories and because 'gender' was a euphemism for 'sex', I don't believe that it is going to be a successful argument that 'gender' now refers to 'gender identity' in a sports' situation where sex does matter.

Mentioning that because of the prospect of legal issues that the run will have to close down is emotionally manipulative regardless of whether you mentioned who you blame or not.

I'm not employed by parkrun, so can't answer on their behalf. Speaking as myself though, gender isn't a hugely meaningful thing on its own, but it acts as enough of a proxy for sex (given that for cis people, sex and gender match) that women can get a ballpark of how they're performing against those similar to them. Not perfect, but not entirely meaningless either. Much as the age categories are grouped into 5 year groups, it's a bit of a bodge but it works well enough.

"I can't think of anything more GC that using Gender specifically because it means nothing"

Then you really do miss the point that the language female people require to defend the provisions for their needs have been misused and acquired to render those words to now be meaningless. You believe that the law will support that, I don't believe it will at all.

Well if men hadn’t insisted in running in categories not for them, you’d still have all that wouldn’t you? So it’s on them. Why are you upset at women who want fairness and not at the men who destroy that fairness?

Again, attempting emotional manipulation of 'if we don't accept a little bit of negative sexist discrimination we all miss out' is not a convincing argument.

Either the categories are meaningless and should be completely removed, or they are so meaningful that there should be a policy in place that categories mean 'sex category' and that no male people should be running as if they are female people even if they demand that some people treat them as female when they are not.

You say “cis” people are those whose gender and sex match. What definition of gender are you using? The sexist outdated stereotypes or the nebulous inner feeling? What about those who don’t believe in gender? Are they still “cis”?

Shall we list the reasons....

We apparently don't know any people with transgender identities despite many of with people with transgender identities in our daily lives.

We aren't runners, so therefore we shouldn't be supporting female runners who have been trying to raise awareness to have the policy changed.

The list is long...

The word 'cis' has been used to describe Caster Semenya and other male people with DSDs where their bodies produce and process testosterone in male level ranges. Perhaps 'cis' needs to be very clearly defined when people use the word in relation to a sports discussion.

So because you and your friend don't care, that means everyone else shouldn't care either?

As has been said if parkrun is no big thing then either your friend shouldn't be bothered about running in the male category whilst presenting as female.

I would be willing to bet that your friend knows exactly what postion they are in and what times they do, otherwise, if they weren't bothered they would be running next to you.

If as parkrun claims "its just fun" then there should be no leaderboards as it doesn't matter.

Ok, I won't contest that. But if I say, for MOST people sex and gender match, does my point stand?

So a clear category like sex gets replaced by the undefined category of gender, and women participants can use this new, undefined category as a guesstimate for sex?

Parkrun will not know if gender matches sex 1% or 99% of the time.

Whats the point of recording gender when we are both assuming most people would want to know sex?

Again, what definition of gender are you using to say gender and sex match? Without knowing what gender is, how do people know their sex and gender match? People might be trans and not even know it!

As far as I am concerned the word "cis" needs to be withdrawn from the language, on the grounds of being unnecessary.

Until a little over a decade ago all that trio of letters meant was a prefix indicating either that something was on this or the near side of something (as for instance "cisalpine" or "cispontine") or that two groups of atoms in an unsaturated compound lie on the same side of a double bond, as for instance cis-butadiene. It really is not needed in everyday use.

I'm pointing out the obvious consequences, many of which have already happened.

If you find it "emotionally manipulative" I guess it must be a compelling argument.

no male person is a female in anyway.

It is irrelevant whether you feel they should be treated as if they were female or not. Why should any female person have to accept negative sexist discrimination because a group of male people reject their sex category and demand to be treated as something they materially are not.

The fact also remains that the sex category does not act as any type of proxy if it includes male people’s results. Because those male people have chosen to limit their own performance while then claiming a benefit of being included in the list of female people. That is a privilege and not a basic human right. If they wish to compare themselves to female athletes to get an inaccurate representation of their personal performance, they can do that with their own record keeping.

Why should any female person who doesn’t consent to that sex discrimination be negatively impacted by a male person’s decision to register themselves as being the sex they are materially not?

Because it's much closer to 1% of the time it doesn't match than 99%. It works well enough for women who do parkrun to get a good idea of their performance - I get a good idea of what ballpark I'm in! Again, I think it's more thrown off by people who don't take their barcode, results scanning going wrong, than gender.

No. I haven’t found any of your arguments that support female people being subjected to negative sexist discrimination convincing. But feel free to think otherwise.

The information doesn’t need to be published for individual participants to receive it. You could still be told where you finished, how you compare to others etc. Just ask individuals for their sex ‘assigned at birth’ for recording purposes. It’s not made public so transpeople can choose to either opt out or record their birth sex. Obviously some may lie, but why bother?

Not a compelling argument, not an effective one either. Just more #bekind gubbins aimed at women. If the consequences of men running in categories they don’t belong in have happened, I suggest you take it up with those men.

Who decides on if people's sex and gender match?
It seems to me that for a group that gets irate when incorrectly gendered, the trans lobby is quite happy to gatekeep whose sex and gender match.

Cis is meaningless when describing human sex categories. I agree it should never be used.

It was yet another word repurposed for a use that it was never intended to be used for and it doesn’t even work for that purpose because gender is an identity based on philosophical belief. Cis therefore wrongly categorises every person as having gender identity belief when there are many many people who don’t believe in gender identity theory in any way and certainly do not have a gender identity.

I'm not saying whether people should care. I'm saying that in reality, trans people are going to stay registered as their chosen gender. I don't know how you propose changing that.

I'm quicker than my friend, so not entirely sure about your second point.

Myself and a couple of other parkrun ners have pointed out that part of the fun of parkrun is the leaderboards. And that while it's fun, it's not that big a deal. It's something that runners enjoy having, but we will do without it if that's what's needed.

Why do you think women should be satisfied with a ballpark, when sex is easily recorded and unambiguous?

Why can't men who want to be women leave the sex category blank or record their sex accurately, and ensure that the category isn't a 'ballpark'?

I'm not saying whether people should care. I'm saying that in reality, trans people are going to stay registered as their chosen gender. I don't know how you propose changing that.

Men will not respect boundaries, so we have to pretend that we are happy with them doing what they want to do?

Because it's parkrun! It's not chip timed, for goodness sake.

This is utterly ridiculous. The times themselves are a ballpark. It's not going to be accurate even if every trans person fills in the registration exactly as you stipulate. Neither women nor men are getting timed perfectly, and honestly if you're in position 100 or back your time is likely to be off by around 10 seconds or more.

I think you fundamentally misunderstand what parkrun is.