Why I stood up for fairness at parkrun

The good citizens of reddit are not happy. 'Anti-trans propaganda handed out at parkrun' stated the thread. Yep... I was one of the women handing out fair sport leaflets... here's why...

The good citizens of reddit are not happy. ‘Anti-trans propaganda handed out at parkrun’ is a thread that emerged yesterday and within a couple of hours it was full of reports of how women had turned parkrun into a hate-fuelled political rally. Eventually, parkrun stepped in and closed comments but not before the spleen had been vented…

Here’s arcadesuicide in full flow:

‘I didn’t appreciate them upsetting people and being insidiously hateful at what is intended to be an inclusive event… They put on a simpering attitude and asked me to come and “chat” with them but I made it clear that there was nothing to discuss at which point they got a bit more irate. They whined that I’d had the opportunity to put across my point of view but that they weren’t allowed to.’

Women simpering and whining. Ten out of ten on the misogyny score card there.

Here’s mamakumquat:

‘Nobody gives half a shit about women’s sport… all of a sudden you’re gonna show up and say you care about women’s sport now that we’re talking about trans women? No you fucking don’t. You just hate trans people and this is an easy stick to beat them with and ensure that one more thing remains out of reach for them.’

That’s quite the rant.

The position was summed up by catoneimoidia_counts:

‘On completing my run yesterday a lady handed me a flyer that called for parkrun to exclude trans people from their events by forcing people to register their assigned gender at birth. … I looked at the group’s social media and they have been targeting several parkruns to bully trans people out of parkrun.’

Then parkrun itself weighed in and closed comments with: ‘Hate is not, and never will be, welcome or tolerated here or at a parkrun event – no matter who it is directed at.’

Phew. Clearly, those behind this leafleting are reactionary bigots and no right-thinking person would have anything to do with them? As usual, the truth is not quite what the reddit community would have you believe. Most of the women, and a few men, campaigning on Saturday are quite ordinary people who wish parkrun wasn’t tainted by gross unfairness that allows males to run in women’s categories.

I don’t happen to agree that mixed-sex sport is doing women any favours and am happy to stand up and say so. I am a member of the Women’s Rights Network, which staged a parkrun Day of Action last Saturday. WRN has been campaigning all summer, highlighting the iniquitous position whereby males can sign up as females and race parkrun, thereby skewing the results, winning course records and age group records etc.

Having recently campaigned hard for British Rowing to sort out its unfair policies I have now moved on to campaigning for all sports and events to offer Fair and Safe Sport for women and girls.

I was at Colby parkrun in Pembrokeshire on Saturday with my WRN leaflets and a banner that says Save Women’s Sport. The leaflets clearly state: ‘parkrun lets men register as women AND record their results as female too’ and ‘parkrun lets men who ‘identify as female backdate ALL their results to be recorded as women’s results’. The leaflets call for fairness for women and explain that, in this case, inclusion leads to exclusion of women from results and race leaderboards.

Colby parkrun 30th September 2023

It’s often said that parkrun is for fun and fitness. It’s not a race so why does it matter?

parkrun is a brilliant initiative that has done a fantastic job in promoting healthy activity in a non-competitive and encouraging environment.

But, and it’s a big but, if parkrun isn’t competitive why does it record and publish the scores? Why does it send out press releases when runners break records? Why does it feed scores into the national Power of 10 rankings held by British Athletics?

Many parkrunners only compete against themselves. But still more parkrunners compare their times with others, taking their results very seriously indeed.

When males compete in the female category it affects every woman in the race. It’s not fair.

It’s not fair that Lauren Jeska, a male, holds the women’s course record for Aberystwyth (Jeska is, incidentally, currently serving a prison sentence for attempted murder of a British Athletics official who had asked him to prove his testosterone status).

It’s not fair that another male, Sian Longthorpe, holds numerous women’s age group records around parkruns of the southwest.

It’s not fair that an estimated 20 parkrun women’s course and age group records are held by males.

I campaigned on Saturday because I believe that the vast majority of people believe in fairness for women and girls but aren’t aware of the unfairness in the parkrun system. I don’t want anyone to give up running. Why would anyone have to? What I do want is for parkrun to recognise the unfairness in the system and to put it right by tightening up policies that allow males to taken a woman’s place on the scoresheet. Of course, this is hard to police and no one is expecting parkrun volunteers to check anyone’s biology before they take part. But if the policies aren’t there to prevent unfairness then there’s no recourse at all.

Males are cheating (and probably will continue to cheat) but they’re facilitated by poorly written policies. I will continue to campaign on this and other unfairness in sport until it’s put right.

See you next Saturday 9am at a parkrun near you.