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.

Of course it is. People want the correct position, they don't want a wrong position either way. Of course you don't always get that in parkrun, but 🤷‍♂️.

@Pingponghavoc So men have a competitive event where their identity is prioritised, women get to have a go

That's it in a nutshell.

I suspect you're being sarcastic, but I think that's literally true.

Totaly exposes the whole trans "thing" and how much satisfaction is there for a man beating women in a fun run? I can understand why they want to do it in a paid sport but in a fun run? No satisfaction in that. I doubt they feel happy when the results come through.

So how come it wasn’t complicated to replace sex with gender, but it’s horribly complicated to reverse it?

I do need to add another flawed and weak argument that we have seen many times across the threads now. And that is :

If the changes are made, then those male people and their allies will protest. This needs to be considered by any person advocating that a person or organisation follows the law and sets policy to protect female single sex provisions.

I can't resist. 😢

OK, now. Now I'll stop posting.

@BabyGrooverBug If two groups can't agree what "fair" is the only option is to stop that thing.

Not true at all. We can go with what is objectively fair, i.e. that male runners have a speed advantage and should be listed as male (or as 'prefer not to say'). The fact that a small number don't agree it's fair is irrelevant - as has happened in professional sports, they've finally had to agree to ban males from women's sports (apart from Canada, Australia and a few others, where the fight is still ongoing).

Hilarious comment on that letters page, from "Name and address supplied".

Hate slows you down.

So now we know. Let's not categorise by sex, nor gender, but by "hateful" people (who have a speed disadvantage) and "TRSOH", who will be naturally faster.

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.

This is a bizarre argument. Gender originated as a synonym for sex. It only has any meaning because it's in large part a proxy for physical bodies, except insofar as it's been expanded into including the minority who "identify" with those with the opposite body type (and, by extension, imposing an oft unrecognised "identity" on everyone else). Something that distorts the original parameters by which sporting competition is organised into something that is only seemingly (but not) fair - seemingly (but not) "meaningless" - isn't an improvement. It's the worst kind of sneaky, cowardly spin.

I think using gender as a euphemism for sex originated in the same mind-set as calling a cock a rooster; prurience, probably in America. For a place that never actually had Victoria in charge, it has had some remarkably Victorian attitudes over the years.

I will be honest ands say that I have never attended parkrun and never will. (My knees won't allow it).

But that is not really the point.

The point is that this has the same effect as boys /men in girls/women's sports.

Yes till the age of about 13 most sports are mixed, but they are separated for a reason. (https://boysvswomen.com/#/)

Whether a difference in ability/physiology is the reason or plainly just because having a fair chance at winning encourages girls to participate as women.
It remains that men in wome's sports prevents women from taking part.
And that starts at schools and amature levels.

Yes. In a way, "gender" has always been about denying or obfuscating physical realities which are the source of women's disadvantage and oppression. Gender-replacing-sex - "it's the female gender, so we can argue women are unsuited to the professional sphere"; gender-replacing-sex - "it's the female gender, so we can argue women aren't affected by the removal of their own sex-category in sport). Heads, we win; tails, you lose.

And presenting this sex-denialism as being in women's interests (long skirts = you can't be stared at; gendered parkrun = you can't be lied to) can only ever foreground and advantage the male. Because he remains a safe, unhobbled "default", while women are corsetted-up in their own homes and slowed down in their own race categories.

And that also reflects how the imposition of this "meaningless" gender category means that, in order to participate in parkrun, I need to identify as something I'm not - gendered - and thereby implicitly subscribe to something I think is actively against my interests: the idea of me having a gender at all, anyway.

All very Victorian.

Meanwhile the most archetypical Victorian thing of all was child prostitution.

I am also not going to comment further as I don’t think we are debating, just lecturing me on why I’m wrong to be “competitive” in a run I do most weeks (although my stats show me as one of the slowest at my age, albeit progressing slowly) or anti-women which is untrue if anyone knew me in RL. I have read the links provided btw.

Are you trying to debate with women on a feminism chat board about why some female athletes need to accept negative sex discrimination in a sports event that has separate categories for female and male people for any reason?

Have you provided any thoughtful and evidence based reason why female athletes need to accept negative sex discrimination in a sports event that has separate categories for female and male people or just told women that they should, which would not be a 'debate'? If not, are you not someone who is lecturing people on this thread and declaring that they should not be able to comment due to your personally constructed criteria that they are merely 'keyboard warriors'?

I think many on this thread agree it is a competitive event. It is refreshing to have someone acknowledge this after pages and threads where we have been told that it is not just because parkrun makes that false declaration.

Men who want to be women are using these events as an opportunity to change language and push boundaries.

Its obvious to anyone that events like parkrun where individuals times are compared need to separate by sex and age, even if they are informal.

Parkrun change this sex class from a male and female choice to include 'any other gender'. Suddenly they arent asking for sex, they are asking for gender. And male and female become genders. Women didnt ask for this, its TRA. And as stated in other posts, it benefits men who id as female.

People who say it doesnt matter - its only a small percentage of men, its not a sex segregated sport, its only for fun, are missing the point.

Its boundary pushing. We are expected compromise when sex is important away from when women want it to when men want it. Women times arent a safety concern therefore it doesnt matter.

Its also changing female to be a gender word, not a sex category. If any man can identify as female, what does female mean?

Its taking away womens ability to decide when our sex is relevant and taking our words from us.

Its important enough for men not to backdown. They could register as male or prefer not to say, and no one would know. But they dont because they know the implications of what they are doing. They want to control when sex is important and take away womens ability to describe themselves and not include men.

It is a super power Swirly. It lifts you.

In the meantime, it is fucking misogynistic to expect female athletes to simply accept negative sexist discrimination for the overall good.

Parkrun’s “I’m going to take my ball home” decision to remove six “cool features” was theirs alone. There’s no reason why people registering by birth sex has to result in the removal of anything. World Athletics still manage to produce “cool features”. Indeed the metrics Parkrun’s age grading is based upon uses ‘sexed’ data as a baseline, so would be more accurate if their data were also ‘sexed’.

If their argument is, however, that it would ‘out’ some transpeople if they appeared on public lists under their birth sex, then the solution is obvious (and is a question you seem determined to avoid). Why not provide the same data (standings etc) privately to Parkrunners? Either by email or via their PR profiles.

If their argument is, however, that it would ‘out’ some transpeople if they appeared on public lists under their birth sex

This is another thing that TRA are keen to push - the idea that their sex is private.

Yes. there is a considerable amount of boundary violation in male people registering as female athletes and very likely a large amount of power and control of female people by those male people as well.

Haven't we already seen on this thread posters who are defending boundary pushing as being something we should accept because the male person identifies as he is female, therefore apparently, we should just accept that and accept that male person and any others as registering in a female sports category? And then the description of the female sports category itself then has been twisted and twisted to enable that male person to be accepted in it.

Even the very nature of the female sports category from the word 'female' to whether it even fucking qualifies as a 'sports' worthy of protection of the female category have been attempted here on this very thread.

I think this is a useful video in that Amy highlights several important things.

One is the nature of the boundary violations of male people, that even a boundary violation by deception is a significant issue.

But she also highlights the tactics and emotional manipulation that underlie the rhetoric people use to demand that male people are treated as if they are female people.

Remembering of course, that this can only ever be premised from a philosophical position. Because there is no material way for male person to change sex and someone’s feelings of gender dysphoria does not mean that they are materially the sex they want to believe they are.

https://x.com/knownheretic/status/2006188958586380420?s=46

Once you can strip away the emotionally manipulative language and behaviour, there is no logic or science that supports the demand that male people should be treated as if they are female

Sex category of an individual ceases to qualify as 'sensitive' data when there is a public interest, such as potential harm to female people, at stake. The harm being the lack of fair and safe sports in a protected sports category.

Trans men also have a speed advantage though. If I were to start taking testosterone, I would get significantly quicker. I don't get how registering everyone by sex at birth gets round that fact.

Perhaps any female athletes taking performance enhancement substances could be asked to enter the 'prefer not to say' category and they can get their ranking as per the overall set.

Or alternatively make the male category an 'open' category as other sports have done to allow inclusion of those female athletes, and then those athletes can be asked to join that 'open' category. Or they could have a male category, a female category and an open category?

edit to add: Many athletes have to make decisions every day about the medication and drugs they take and how that impacts their performance. A female athlete that is effectively taking a performance enhancer has made that decision with full knowledge of doing so. It is up to that female athlete to respect others and make a respectful decision on registering.

Well the osteoporosis will catch up with the testosterone taking transmen sooner or later so I doubt they’ll make much of an impact on women’s results if they register as female.

What has also seemed to be a common position is the one that infantilises those male and female athletes who have transgender identities where people believe that somehow those athletes should not be expected to take responsibility for their own decisions about whether they should or should not show respect for a protected sports category.

We have seen a repetition over and over of discussions on gender identity and how a policy cannot be policed. Yet, it does seem that no one expects this group to make mature respectful decisions if the policy changed to protect female sports as it needs to do.