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.

Why is it always women who are told to go and set up their own event?
Why don’t trans people and their allies go and set up their own events? All the ally women should be more than happy to be treated as second best in order to affirm a load of delusional men.

So we are back to female people needing to accept a small amount of negative sex discrimination for the overall good.

And yet, other female people cannot give consent for those female people who have said they don’t consent to male people using what is a female single sex provision.

The sporting event falls under the EA2010 and that has been clarified. Regardless of whether those who are pointing out the issues are runners, are part of parkrun, the situation remains the same.

I think many of us on this board are used to being derided, derogated and demonised and vilified for pointing out how female single sex provisions are negatively impacted by male people accessing them.

If you, personally, are arguing for any exception for any male person to bypass female people’s consent, individual or collective consent, then you should expect to be able to defend your stance if challenged. If your reaction to being challenged is to fall back on excuses that are irrelevant and that maintain allowing some negative sex discrimination for female people for the overall good or is to resort to more irrelevant points that is fine, many of us have seen it before. Usually, it is a reaction from the male people themselves, but either way, it is rather common.

Just a reminder.

https://x.com/mara_yamauchi/status/2096144220176171058?s=46

“Parkrun: good illustration today of how self-ID corrupts age grade rankings.

A male in his 60s ran parkrun in Australia in the Female category. If he’d run in the Male category, he’d have been 6th in the age grade rankings with a score just over 70%. But because he ran in the Female category, his age grade score was just over 86%. This rocketed him up to the top spot by a massive margin (well over 10%).

The runners who got bumped down were:

1. A young man who was 1st to finish so he was robbed of being 1st by time and 1st by age grade.

2. A woman in her 60s who’s a devoted parkrunner & has done >100 parkruns;

3. A man in his 60s, also devoted & is close to having done 200 parkruns;

4. A woman who, despite being in her 40s, was near the top of the Female finishing order. She’s done >70 parkruns;

5. A man who, despite being in his 50s, was near the top of the Male finishing order. He’s done >50 parkruns.

All these very good runners who are devoted parkrunners suffering unfairness & being robbed of their hard-earned place in the age grade rankings, and all for what? So that parkrun can indulge the beliefs of men who say they are women. So much unfairness inflicted on men & women bc parkrun can’t bring itself to say no to these men & implement sex at birth categories.”

This letter in the Guardian sums it up quite nicely.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/feb/15/parkrun-trans-athletes-and-fairness-to-women

You understand the lack of symmetry?

A man is far less likely to be knocked down the placing by a woman, than a woman by a man?

Also, given that far more men participate in the event than women, there will be more trans identifying men than trans identifying women in the incorrect category.

That was a good letter. Thanks for the heads up.

...being knocked up the placing is just as bad. If you get your highest ever placing and it's false it can be impossible to ever get a "real" placement "PB". Happens a lot with PBs, a mistake gives you a false but unattainable PB so you're stuck with it. In general I'd far rather my place was falsely lowered than raised. (Unless there was prize money!)

....and does it really matter. In an ideal world we want placings to be correct but in parkrun that's not possible, I'm sure if you thought men suffer more you wouldn't say "oh that's OK then" so your fundamental issue is lack of rigor means placings can be wrong, it doesn't matter who for.

Gosh… if only male people understood that sex matters and that they cannot change sex and that gender is irrelevant to sporting performance so did the respectful thing and registered in either their correct sex category or prefer not to say.

Now we have to be concerned by the false positive impact on male runners. While simultaneously understanding that ranking is not important, yet it is and local ranking is most important of all.

Its not really the same. I'm male and a closer equivalent would be if a small % of male runners had the option to have a 500m head start which didn't show up on the results pages.
(And I dont think other male runners would accept the "its not a race" platitudes if that were allowed to impact them)

It really doesn't, it's just a bunch of people having a hysterical identity politics argument. All of them studiously avoid talking about the mechanics of running park run results boards which is what actually matters here.

We've already lost six cool features. The 7th and 8th that will go are now obvious. If two groups can't agree what "fair" is the only option is to stop that thing.

Spoiling other people's passtimes by making a massive fuss about how unfair they are is frustrating in the extreme. I can imagine a bunch of smug people were standing by a parkrun in 2024 shouting "We got course records removed so it's much fairer now, you should all be grateful to us!" If you want to make parkrun better, volunteer, don't csmpaign to get features removed.

It is the same, and that's a terrible analogy.

Ooh… hysterical now is it? Why? Because women want fairness? Those pesky women wanting fairness eh? They should just suck it up right abd let the men do what they want.

It's funny how one learns to recognise a posting style in one-thread newbies, even though the names change regularly.

Ooh… hysterical now is it? Why?

Because they all left out any detail of parkrun results boards and how they want it run.

You consider this a relevant and useful contribution to how to run a fun, I don't:

"I disagree with Policy Exchange rightwingers (and those helping to spread their prejudice), but they are welcome to run alongside me at parkrun. They might just get out of their echo chamber long enough to meet the human beings they are so keen to write off as nothing more than an ideology to be disparaged. I can’t promise they won’t get a worse finish time though. Hate slows you down."

Add to that:

Hysterical
identity politics
And what about the men.

But I’ve seen quite a few posters saying they want parkrun to register by sex. That is it. This will make it fairer to women. It’s easy. They say that quite clearly and in small words so everyone can understand unless they have reading comprehension problems.

i men if someone is going to lie about what category they should be in, that’s on them isn’t it. You’ll always get cheaters. But it should be made clear this is cheating and discouraged.

What about the men?

I'm proposing men suck it up, just like the women. The problem is identical for both and the solution will be worse than the problem as it has been with the other six features that were unfair, and therefore removed.

"I disagree with Policy Exchange rightwingers (and those helping to spread their prejudice), but they are welcome to run alongside me at parkrun. They might just get out of their echo chamber long enough to meet the human beings they are so keen to write off as nothing more than an ideology to be disparaged. I can’t promise they won’t get a worse finish time though. Hate slows you down."

I think that this letter, which I doubt is the letter that Backtolurk was talking about, is rather indicative of the emotional reasoning, emotionally manipulative and demonising tactics that some people rely on to defend their support of allowing female sports categories to be accessed by male people.

Starting to think you are just a bit stupid now. Or desperate not to comprehend the asymmetry in the situation.

There is nothing for men to suck up.

Being “bumped up” a place isn’t the same as being bumped down, that’s not how races work.

Apparently it is just as bad that male people will not have accurate ranking because they might think they are doing better than they are.

While I agree it is important that all runners should have some degree of trust in the results, it is not symmetrical. But apparently, it is just another thing that women have to consider.

parkrun to register by sex

Glibly saying i want parkrun to register by sex is the very defintion of leaving out any detail of parkrun results boards and how they want it run. Which is what I said.

Eg: So they do that. Undoubtedly morally the right thing to do.

So will that get everyone off park runs back? No it won't. The other side will complain and the drama will continue.

You can't lie about your gender, it means nothing. So now you've just given people a thing they can lie about or get wrong. What do you do if someone runs under the wrong sex? Police it or not police it? Either would be a nightmare.

They need to think it through and explain why it will solve all the problems for parkrun. I don't think they can. I think the only way park run can make this go away is to get rid of gender positions to everyone's loss.

I'll try to make this my last post on this topic. I've said everything I've got to say several times.

BabyGrooverBug
I'll try to make this my last post on this topic. I've said everything I've got to say several times.

I think I might just leave that sitting here. Without comment.

We're very close to deciding that lying about their sex actually disadvantages trans identifying men more than anyone.

They are probably doing is all a favour by insisting that they are female.