Transgender Athletes
2 lurkers |
97 watchers
Oct 2023
11:27am, 3 Oct 2023
64,234 posts
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LindsD
support.parkrun.com
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11 Jan
8:58am, 11 Jan 2024
22,951 posts
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larkim
Interesting to see that the relatively well known Sian Longthorpe is reported as having "given up" her parkrun female age category (and overall) records at parkrun. (I'm linking to Mara Yamauchi's tweet, but I do not agree with her position on this, and fundamentally object to the way that MY refuses to use a female pronoun for trans women like Longthorpe) twitter.com She's been in the sights of those campaigning for sex-based categories only at parkrun for a while I think. It's interesting to me as someone who fully supports the growing trend towards sex-based classification in competitive sport, but yet still thinks on balance that gender identity based parkrun categorisation seems entirely correct and appropriate. It's pretty clear that the combination of parkrun being something a lot of people can identify with and general trans phobia means that this issue has garnered a relatively large amount of energy (and the usual bile on both sides) as a debate. |
11 Jan
11:24am, 11 Jan 2024
43,457 posts
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SPR
The point of sex (and other) categorisation in most sports is advantage though. There's no point in categorising in most cases if it isn't about advantage. Boxing has weight categorisation for example but would still have sex categorisation because men have advantages over women at the same weight. |
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11 Jan
11:32am, 11 Jan 2024
22,952 posts
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larkim
Yes, and I agree wholeheartedly for sports (and I know that for many trans people that's not an acceptable outcome, and even though I'm settled in my view there is a bit about that that makes me sad, because I am positive about inclusion). Where I find myself disagreeing is that parkrun is "sport". It's very very like sport, of course it is. But the overall wraparound, where the intent (whether or not all participants see it like that) is that it is not primarily about performance or placing, but about participation and collective activity, is where for me it should be considered to be different to "sport". It's a separate argument really, and been done to death on the parkrun thread and elsewhere, and I guess if your gut feeling is that parkrun is what it was when it started (competitive time trials for runners) then you'll tend towards seeing it as a sport, and if you're gut feeling is that the direction that parkrun has gone over the last 10 years has moved significantly away from that original ethos (and that that's a good thing) then I guess you would have a different perspective perhaps? I'm in the second camp on parkrun, but I'm not saying I'm right and anyone else is wrong, it's just a declaration from me that that's how I see it, and in a spirit of where I am prepared to be persuaded otherwise I also like to persuade others to my perspective. |
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11 Jan
11:38am, 11 Jan 2024
43,459 posts
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SPR
If parkrun isn't a sport, why classify at all? It's another version of the if parkrun isn't a race, why have results? |
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11 Jan
11:43am, 11 Jan 2024
22,954 posts
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larkim
And yes, that's the argument. I guess the answer is it's partly sport, and partly not sport. It's the running equivalent of a "friendly". Plus the fact that parkrun doesn't adhere to a governing body's set of "rules". It's loosely associated with athletics bodies, of course - the Powerof10 updates is evidence of that - but there's no rule book that it has to follow. There are guides there to make it run smoothly, and codes of conduct for how to behave when the event is taking place etc. |
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11 Jan
11:45am, 11 Jan 2024
22,955 posts
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larkim
parkrun has results etc because many people want them for their own purposes. Not everyone of course, some people don't feel the need to want the results, and for other people the results tables are uber important. That's parkrun's issue - being all things to all people all of the time.
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11 Jan
1:02pm, 11 Jan 2024
16,208 posts
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jda
I wonder how you can "give up" a record anyway? By its very nature, a record is not the possession of the athlete, it's a record of what happened on a given day. I quite fancy giving up a few of my losing results, in various sports over the years... |
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11 Jan
2:32pm, 11 Jan 2024
22,956 posts
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larkim
Yes, I wondered that too.
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11 Jan
2:41pm, 11 Jan 2024
16,209 posts
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jda
Actually having read on it seems that Park Run allows people to exclude themselves from records if they wish. Shrug.
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