Transwomen are not Women - Part 15

[Rolfe]

I think Orphia's reply is another example of the "why does it matter to you?" genre. Why does it matter, it's just a fun run. Why does it matter to you who is peeing in the next cubicle? And so on.

This always seems to be aimed at females. We're the ones who have to put aside our own interests as being something that doesn't really matter. I have never heard anyone say to a trans-identifying man, it's just a fun run, why does it matter whether you're in the male division? Or indeed, why does it matter to you who is in the next cubicle to you in the toilets? It always matters desperately that the men get what they want, but when the women protest, they're told it shouldn't matter to them.

 

[theprestige]

That means this will soon be cited as an example of the violence against transgender people that JK Rowling has caused.

And simultaneously used to artificially inflate the stats of violence by women.

 

[angrysoba]

Some people definitely do - I think Mara Yamauchi in particular. There have been some incidents at Parkruns between anti-trans activists and volunteers over allowing transgender runners.

Parkrun director tells ex-Olympian to 'F*** OFF' in transgender row

Former British Olympic runner Mara Yamauchi has been branded a 'bigoted bully' and told to 'f*** off' by a Parkrun director in a furious row about trans women competing in the event's female category.

www.dailymail.co.uk

It may be that some transgender runners have been trying to get as many course records as possible in the female category.
But, honestly, the Parkruns that I have been to are friendly events that do people good by encouraging the community to be active.

I think it would be a shame if it became a new battleground for toxic culture wars.

It's one thing to have cheek swabs at international athletic events, and another one to have people trying to demand that transgender runners not be allowed to compete in Parkrun.

All sex segregation is important, because it's all the same issue. Any overriding of sex segregation by fiat self-ID is a threat to all sex segregation.
The anti-science, anti-social lie that is fiat self-ID needs to be culled, root and branch. If the cancer is allowed to lodge anywhere, it will eventually metastasize everywhere. Bring the chemo, bring the radiation, burn it out of parkrun too.


Why do you lie like this? Nobody is making the demand you imagine.
The demand people are actually making is that men not be entitled to override sex segregation whenever they want. Hopefully this is a demand you understand and agree with, in parkrun as well as everywhere else.

Yeah, I made a mistake by saying that people were demanding transgender runners not compete. This is not happening. That said, I think there is clearly an element of enforcement that I don't think parkrun volunteers sign up for.

You can't have it both ways. It's either just a fun event, or it's something where times and rankings matter. If you're going to time the participants and collect, collate and publish the data, then clearly times and rankings matter to some people. It's thoroughly unfair to maintain a "female" category in which males are permitted to participate willy-nilly. It's obviously upsetting a lot of female participants to have their performances bumped down the rankings by males who have entered themselves as female, and to see people they know are male awarded the accolade of "fastest female".

ETA: look what I just saw.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1941420457510793503

"unlawful" is probably not true when it comes to parkrun.

Cheating definitely happens in sports. And it's fine to call it out. It doesn't always have to be unlawful.

 

[angrysoba]

I think Orphia's reply is another example of the "why does it matter to you?" genre. Why does it matter, it's just a fun run. Why does it matter to you who is peeing in the next cubicle? And so on.
This always seems to be aimed at females. We're the ones who have to put aside our own interests as being something that doesn't really matter. I have never heard anyone say to a trans-identifying man, it's just a fun run, why does it matter whether you're in the male division? Or indeed, why does it matter to you who is in the next cubicle to you in the toilets? It always matters desperately that the men get what they want, but when the women protest, they're told it shouldn't matter to them.

Obviously the two things are not equivalent.

The arguments I have heard from you and others is that letting men into the women's is at best an insult to women's dignity and at worst allowing women to be raped in the cubicles.

The latter is clearly not happening at parkrun so pretending Orphia is making the same claim is disengenuous.

 

[theprestige]

Yeah, I made a mistake by saying that people were demanding transgender runners not compete. This is not happening. That said, I think there is clearly an element of enforcement that I don't think parkrun volunteers sign up for.




"unlawful" is probably not true when it comes to parkrun.

Cheating definitely happens in sports. And it's fine to call it out. It doesn't always have to be unlawful.

Yeah, unlawful isn't really the word. Unethical, immoral, antisocial, and misogynistic all work better here.

 

[Rolfe]

It is actually unlawful in Britain to advertise a category as being for females, and then to let men into it. It's covered by the Equalities Act. Parkrun UK will probably be receiving a solicitor's letter about this in due course.

Obviously the two things are not equivalent.

The arguments I have heard from you and others is that letting men into the women's is at best an insult to women's dignity and at worst allowing women to be raped in the cubicles.

The latter is clearly not happening at parkrun so pretending Orphia is making the same claim is disengenuous.

You don't understand the concept of different examples of the same fallacy, do you? I'm not "pretending" that Orphia is claiming that including male times in the female Parkrun statistics is allowing women to be raped. Obviously. I'm pointing out that time and time again women are told (even by other women) that their concerns are trivial, too trivial to be considered, while the wants of the men are treated as all-important.

 

[angrysoba]

It is actually unlawful in Britain to advertise a category as being for females, and then to let men into it. It's covered by the Equalities Act. Parkrun UK will probably be receiving a solicitor's letter about this in due course.



You don't understand the concept of different examples of the same fallacy, do you? I'm not "pretending" that Orphia is claiming that including male times in the female Parkrun statistics is allowing women to be raped. Obviously. I'm pointing out that time and time again women are told (even by other women) that their concerns are trivial, too trivial to be considered, while the wants of the men are treated as all-important.

I don't think it is trivial for women competing in parkrun. As it happens, my cousin is someone who is highly competitive at Parkrun and I wouldn't be surprised if she was first female at several of them.

The point is about volunteers at parkrun having to enforce it.

Now maybe they will not have to. Maybe there is a simple way of having people inform on cheats and have their records taken down.

It could be that this already happens with people who lie about their age.

If that happens, then fine.

 

[Rolfe]

At the moment it's not about enforcement. It's about Parkrun officially, explicitly, permitting men to complete in the "Female" category.

 

[angrysoba]

At the moment it's not about enforcement. It's about Parkrun officially, explicitly, permitting men to complete in the "Female" category.

Doesn't it work on the honour system?

 

[p0lka]

At the moment it's not about enforcement. It's about Parkrun officially, explicitly, permitting men to complete in the "Female" category.

I posted the parkrun rules earlier, if you didn't read it I'll post it again

https://support.parkrun.com/hc/en-us/articles/360005339137-1-3-Gender-categorisation

I'm not keen on the rules as they're not doing what I think is the better thing to do, but hey ho. If you don't agree with the rules then don't sign up, or even better go and protest the rules as they are a wee bit ◊◊◊◊.

 

[p0lka]

Trace the conversation back, and you will land on the post I linked. Why do you think we're talking about the word "tomboy" to begin with?

Last time you tried to pull this crap on me, you embarrassed yourself. Did you learn nothing?

I accused you of ad homs, then went back to check, you skirted the line but not actual ad homs so I was incorrect. You seem to think that's it's embarrassing to be wrong? No of course not, I learnt a few things.

No, I'm not just trying to score points, I'm trying to put this whole diversion in its proper context. Since you're still struggling with this, let me break it down for you, slightly abridged. Let's start with your claim about changing labels. This is not the first time you made the claim, but it's the one that precipitated the "tomboy" conversation:

See that? That's you, talking about the word "woman". So the stage is set, you've made the claim that "woman" refers to gender and not sex. This is the topic, and everything that follows traces back to this claim. theprestige challenged this claim, saying

You disagreed:

Now EC stepped in, saying:

EC introduced "boy" to the conversation, but note, she's still explicitly tying it back to "woman". It's not a separate topic, it's the SAME topic. She is STILL talking about your claim that "woman" refers to sex and not gender. Her point is that "boy", "girl", "man", "woman" were ALL sex terms and not gender terms. You then responded:

This sparked a whole discussion about the meaning of tomboy, which we need not rehash here. You introduced "tomboy" in this post, but seem to have forgotten either that you were the one to introduce it, or why you did so. You were trying to prove that these terms were gendered, as a way to support your claim that "woman" has long been gendered, which in turn is part of your attempt to argue that switching to sex terms instead of gender terms would solve things. I need not touch upon why you are wrong here, having already done so at length. For this post, all I'm doing is demonstrating how we got to this point in the conversation, since you clearly don't remember. And how we got to this point, again, is your claim that substituting the label "female" for "women" would somehow fix things.

You may not remember, but Pepperidge Farms remembers.

Emily's Cat said

I have doubts about your claim. I'm a mere five years younger than you... and at no point in my childhood did "boy" mean a child who wore trousers, liked toy cars and guns, and played cowboys & indians with the other kids at recess. If it had, I would have been consistently called a "boy" when I was a wee kid. But I wasn't, despite my penchant for math and science and climbing trees. Because the words "boy" and "girl" and "man" and "woman" have been consistently understood for both of our entire lives to refer to sex.

I and other people replied then you said

Emily’s Cat was questioning your assertion that “women” referred to gender and not sex at that time. Which is a different issue than whether gender and sex were considered different. In the vast majority of cases back then, “women” referred to sex, not gender. The only notable exceptions were some rather fringe academic feminists.

I was talking about gender roles being a bit separate in the 70's , and Emily's Cat was talking about the gender label 'boy'.
I didn't mention 'woman' at all and Emily's Cat only mentioned 'woman' when listing the gender labels at the end.

Do you understand now? My statement that I never mentioned woman at all was in reference to the above conversation, not the entire thread.

offtopic Question: I can't even get back to the beginning of this thread though I posted then, was it wiped when we switched from the randi website to this one or is it just me?

 

[Rolfe]

I posted the parkrun rules earlier, if you didn't read it I'll post it again

https://support.parkrun.com/hc/en-us/articles/360005339137-1-3-Gender-categorisation

I'm not keen on the rules as they're not doing what I think is the better thing to do, but hey ho. If you don't agree with the rules then don't sign up, or even better go and protest the rules as they are a wee bit ◊◊◊◊.

Yes, quite. Men are allowed to say they are female and be counted in the female statistics. This is actually illegal in Britain. You simply expect women to self-exclude if they don't like this? Always it's the women who have to give way so the men can have what they want. Every bloody time.

There are of course women protesting about this. It's even allowed to protest about it in this thread, and to point out that it is a breach of the Equalities Act. First get the rules the way they should be, then consider the practicalities of enforcing them. If there is no intent to enforce them, why have any rules at all?

It's not even as if this is a question of whom you run against. Everyone runs together. What could be more inclusive? It's entirely about people (men) screwing up the statistics of the female category by insisting on being counted in it, and actual women being not happy about this.

 

[theprestige]

Doesn't it work on the honour system?

No. Current parkrun policy is on the "men are entitled to override sex segregation whenever they want" system. The question of "sincere" or "committed" or "diagnosed" trans never comes into it. There's no honor to questioned. self-id is the only credential you need.

 

[smartcooky]

That means this will soon be cited as an example of the violence against transgender people that JK Rowling has caused.

I'm about 12,000 miles away from you, and I can taste the sarcasm from here.

 

[Rolfe]

Honour system. That used to work fine. People put their names down in the category they were entitled to enter. People used the sanitary facilities designated for their own sex, other than in exceptional circumstances. People didn't generally transgress, and if they did they could and would be shamed into behaving themselves. If a man put his name down to be counted in the female statistics and this was noticed, he could be reported to the organisers, his name would be removed and he'd be told to enter the correct category next time.

Honour has now left the building. First men announced that they had the right to use the women's facilities if they wanted to, although that was not actually the case. Now the law has been made clear on the subject, rather than respecting the law they are announcing to the world that they intend to go right on using women's facilities. How are you going to stop me? they demand. Even public service providers are announcing their intention to facilitate men using women's facilities, although this is clearly against the law.

We didn't used to need security guards at the entrances to public toilets. People followed the honour system and the occupants could police their own spaces if necessary, secure in the knowledge that if they had to call the management then management would support the people who had a right to be there and ask the interloper to leave. Now we have a cohort of entitled individuals who feel no shame about transgressing social and legal boundaries, and enforcement becomes a live issue.

Parkrun should not be a difficult situation to deal with. Rule that while everyone is free to participate in one big happy family, those who want to take part in the timings/rankings game are required to register their correct sex and age. Anyone against whom a credible complaint is made will be required to produce their birth certificate to the organsers.

It seems that trans-identifying people and their enablers have never even heard of the concept of honour.

 

[Orphia Nay]

parkrun is a not-for-profit organisation. Who is meant to check birth certificates for 10 million people in 24 countries?

It's entirely about people (men) screwing up the statistics of the female category by insisting on being counted in it, and actual women being not happy about this.

No. It's about having a run or walk in the park. Your "men" gaming the new parkrun system are a tiny, tiny number (if they exist at all, which I doubt), and your "women" include many women who are inclusive.

 

[Ziggurat]

parkrun is a not-for-profit organisation. Who is meant to check birth certificates for 10 million people in 24 countries?

This is a valid point. And it's why I suspect the solution they will adopt is to just not list sex/gender.

No. It's about having a run or walk in the park.

Nope. If that were all, there would be no point listing times. They list times because some people do care.

Your "men" gaming the new parkrun system are a tiny, tiny number (if they exist at all, which I doubt), and your "women" include many women who are inclusive.

This is not a valid point. It's a prime example of saying women's objections don't matter because the numbers are too small, but trans identifying males' feelings do matter even though the numbers are small. It's textbook hypocrisy.

 

[smartcooky]

Your "men" gaming the new parkrun system are a tiny, tiny number (if they exist at all, which I doubt), and your "women" include many women who are inclusive.

...and it only takes a tiny, tiny number entitled, selfish, self-centred scumbags to have a negative impact on everybody.

 

[angrysoba]

parkrun is a not-for-profit organisation. Who is meant to check birth certificates for 10 million people in 24 countries?


No. It's about having a run or walk in the park. Your "men" gaming the new parkrun system are a tiny, tiny number (if they exist at all, which I doubt), and your "women" include many women who are inclusive.

Here’s the thing, Orphia. It’s almost certainly true that parkrun is as you describe for 99.9% of participants.

That said, there are a small number of transwomen who do attempt to break the female course records in a number of parkruns.

The female park runners who previously held those records are entitled to feel aggrieved, especially given that parkrun has the inclusive categories in which they can state “other” or “rather not say”. In fact, as we know people can even run anonymously so they go down as unlnown.

The unsporting part is when they self-ID as the opposite sex.

I’m persuaded that it is similar to someone saying they are forty when they are actually 19 and winning the course records for that age group. It makes a mockery of parkrun to allow that.

I expect this can be resolved without the volunteers having to do anything on the day. The administrative level can instead be informed that there are runners misrepresenting their age or gender.

 

[Rolfe]

parkrun is a not-for-profit organisation. Who is meant to check birth certificates for 10 million people in 24 countries?

No. It's about having a run or walk in the park. Your "men" gaming the new parkrun system are a tiny, tiny number (if they exist at all, which I doubt), and your "women" include many women who are inclusive.

Either they simply admit anyone and publish no times or rankings, or they find some way to enforce the categories they publish. "Let anyone into the protected categories because it's too much trouble to enforce the rules" doesn't sound like a strategy to win hearts and minds. Given that there are volunteers at all the myriad small events across the globe, it doesn't actually sound all that hard to me. Everyone can run but if you want to be included in the published stats we want to see your birth certificate is one possible approach. Another is an honour system, but participants informed that anyone who is the subject of a credible complaint may be asked to produce their birth certificate. The latter would appear more reasonable. It's not the men masquerading as women who are the root of the problem. The root of the problem is the organisers who actively encourage them to do that rather than weeding them out and wiping their stats from the records.

I posted the link to the number of men gaming the system earlier, but here's the screenshot again in case you missed it.



Over two hundred and thirty official "first female" places have been claimed by men. Mara didn't give numbers for female records held by men, but it's likely that many of these will be forever out of reach of female runners.

It doesn't matter if some women are "inclusive" (read, sucking up to men to be thought of as "kind" with no care for the well-being or feelings of other women), they do not have the right to invite men into protected female categories thus destroying these categories for the women who do object to this.

For crying out loud Orphia, why the hell are you defending these cheats? They get exactly the same experience of the actual run regardless of which category they enter as. Male and female are not the only two categories, they can go in as "other" or "prefer not to say" if they don't want the apparent stigma of registering as male. What are they getting out of insisting on being included in the female category? Nothing but the egoboo of taking a spot in the rankings from a woman who tried harder than they did. Getting a cheap thrill from being higher-ranked than they would be in their correct category. It's nothing but cheating.