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.

Yes, i do agree. But how would this be achieved? How would they prove they’re lying about their sex? How do they prove someone is lying about their age out of curiosity?

I've changed my mind. Actually consulting Parkruns website they say this:

After careful consideration and extensive consultation–both in 2019 and in 2023, we decided to continue categorising people based on gender rather than sex.

That's nonsense and wrong.

I'm happy for them to categorise on Sex, and then not bother to define sex, and not police it. So its essentially a free for all, around what people want sex to mean. In contrast,
explicity saying gender is mental.

Gender (if we believe it exists which I don't) has no effect on sporting ability, and people shouldn't be categorised on that basis for a run.

Yup, volunteers have no reliable way to match a physical runner to the online identity that later receives the result.

All demographic data, gender, age category, club affiliation is self‑declared and unverified. You can even send another runner with your bar code. It's easy to cheat at Parkrun, just as it's easy to cheat at patience.

Late Onset Feminism- LOF!
#metoo
love this!

ETA maybe it should be Rapid Onset Late Feminism? ROLF?

Totally agree with all of that, but also …

No one can agree on a definition of what gender is, or even how many genders there are.

Stupidity on steroids

No, thanks. I don’t accept lies and propaganda.

Why can’t every runner who enters just tell the truth and register according to their biological sex. I don’t care what TIMs want to identify as, don’t care if they all run in pink lycra and tutus, or call themselves Daisy. I care about the truth - and if they can’t register truthfully, they can be in the open category by default.

Haha! Totally !

I'm rolfing on all cylinders 😆

These comments in particular give me the rage

Well if a six foot 18 stone bloke registers for the junior park run…. They might get a clue when he turns up? Or if a young woman in her twenties enters the over 50s category….

I seem to be wading ever deeper into the pissed-off phase. You'd have thought that after about a decade I'd be coming out the other side to the sunlit uplands of freeee-dom, but no.

And if Parkrun can police age, they can damn well police sex.

Men running as women skews the timings.
I want to be compared to other women in my age group. Not men.

How? I'm on the startline next to a 20yo woman. How can I possibly tell she's put herself down as over 50?

At no point does any no human ever tie the physical appearance of someone to an ID and if they did it could only be long after the run.

But that’s my point. While it’s glaringly obvious to everyone, they wouldn’t be allowed to enforce it would they? For fear of causing offence. Ergo, there is no way to ‘prove’ someone is lying on their account. Age or sex.

They can't police age. My son ran before he was 4 and he's been running Adult Parkruns solo under 11 for years. (I can't keep up with him.)

But we haven't simply got the scenario where parkrun find it difficult to enforce.

Their policy is to actively encourage this bs by explicitly saying that under their rules mens/ women's means gender not sex, and its self ID all the way.

They aren't even trying.

It wouldn't be difficult to ask for ID via the website or in person to register as a woman - no ID, no running as a woman. If 18 year old bar staff can manage to ID their customers, I'm sure the volunteers could cope with this.

And yes i know that thanks to the GRA we have people walking around with legally false ID wrt their sex, but there aren't that many. And crucially, it would set the expectation that at Parkrun, woman means female.

no genitals were inspected in the enforcement of this policy

As you were.

So instead of struggling to race against adults, I could enter the juniors and smash the records? Awesome! Might suck for the kids but hey ho. They’ll get over it, and if they complain they’re just nasty bigots right?

Exactly. I’ll be the junior parkrun record holder in no time. Go me!

I don’t know why you’re being sarcastic with your replies to me, I agree with you? It’s absurd.

I’m not being sarcastic. I’m happy. I thought I’d never hold a running record but you have given me hope.

How fast can you run 2k?

Absolutely, this. Because it’s just for fun! It’s NOT THE OLYMPICS. The speedy men won’t mind at all when they lose their placing and records to a horse and rider who identify as human male.
What about if we also give the horse some hormones to make it feel more male?

Men really wouldn't mind IME. The men would laugh about being beaten by a horse and it would be left to the women to point out the (alarming) safety implications.

We already have a precedent for people "cheating" at park run because people already get towed around by their dogs and people miss laps and finish early. (By mistake, I assume!) Nobody cares. Nobody is counting laps and nobody is monitoring dogs.

Faster than many many children 😂😂😂. But of course going into a category I don’t belong in knowing I have an advantage would make me an awful human being. So I won’t. Unlike those TIM who participate in women’s sports because they’re not good enough to compete with other men

Better to put yourself down as 80+ and smash those records!