There has been a lot of noise lately about trans people destroying a community fun run, again, but what is really going on?

Trans athletes put Parkrun funding at risk Female records at several venues held by biological men as leading figures air fears for women’s sports The Daily Telegraph29 Dec 2023By Charles Hymas Home affairs editor ‘We risk alienating a generation of young female athletes if we can’t promise fair and safe play’ PARKRUN must protect women runners from transgender rivals or risk losing its funding, says a report backed by Olympians. The research paper by Policy Exchange, a think tank, found that at least three Parkrun female records were held by biological men as a result of its policy of allowing entrants to self-identify their gender. The report – backed by Olympic medallists Sharron Davies and Daley Thompson, and tennis player Martina Navratilova – warned that female athletes risk being alienated unless grassroots sports from cricket and rowing to football and tennis could provide fair and safe play. It recommended Sports England should require Parkrun to collect participants’ data based on biological sex, rather than their gender identity, and should update all course records to reflect the change. “If this does not happen within 12 months, taxpayers’ funding should be withdrawn,” said the report. It also proposed that women and girls should have a protected single-sex category restricted to biological females at every level of the sport, from amateur to elite. Parkrun is among sports highlighted by Policy Exchange where grassroots policies allow for participants to self-identify their gender. Analysis suggested it placed women at a competitive disadvantage, citing how the winning woman from the London Marathon in 2023 would be beaten by the 231st ranking male, or that every British long-course swimming record set by an elite female swimmer has been beaten by a teenage boy. The report highlighted Porthcawl’s Parkrun record time of 18 minutes 53 seconds in the female 45-49 category which was set by transgender runner Siân Longthorpe. It beat the previous record by one minute 13 seconds, prompting an Olympic long distance runner to say the record was “probably now out of female hands forever”. Ms Longthorpe also holds the age 40-44 female record, as well as the outright female record in Parke, Devon, and the female 40-44 record in Torbay Velopark. Challenged over the self-id policy last summer, Russ Jefferys, Parkrun’s chief executive, said he was “totally comfortable” and had “absolute confidence” in its current position. However, Maria Waite, a Parkrun director, said she was disappointed at the unfairness of the policy. “They accept funding from Sport England, Parkrun results are published every week on the Power of 10 website and yet when challenged the response is that Parkrun is not a sporting event,” she said. “They can’t have it both ways and are alienating women. I am aware that there have been discussions over stopping publishing weekly results and statistics as a way of avoiding addressing the problem, but this again will disadvantage women.” Thompson, a champion Olympic decathlete, said: “We risk alienating a generation of young female athletes if we can’t promise them fair and safe play from the grassroots level to the top. Categories exist to allow everyone the chance to participate and the willingness to compromise this by policymakers within sport is a scandal.” Davies, an Olympic swimming silver medallist, said: “Every sport, at every level, from grassroots to elite, must ensure that the female category is ringfenced for biological females.” Article Name:Trans athletes put Parkrun funding at risk Publication:The Daily Telegraph Author:By Charles Hymas Home affairs editor Start Page:7 End Page:7
The Daily Telegraph 29 Dec 2023 By Charles Hymas Home affairs editor

Since the end of 2023, anti-trans attacks on Parkrun have increased exponentially. Amid the screaming and shouting from some of the worst examples of human beings on the planet, egged on by their cheerleaders in the media, Parkrun decided to make a change, removing records from their website. That caused even more attacks.

The reason for all this is the Policy Exchange, a right-wing Think Tank with secretive funding, a burning desire to keep the Culture Wars aflame and the ear of many in government, including Rishi Sunak who used to work for them before he moved into politics (he was at first a researcher then their Head of the Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) Research Unit).

In addition to releasing a report targeting trans-exclusion from the grassroots up in sport, Policy Exchange found that three trans women held Parkrun records. This, they asserted, is ruining sport for women and girls across the country and the event should lose its funding unless it deals with this urgent problem.

Parkrun scraps all records to appease trans runners Organisation takes drastic action after rejecting calls to stop allowing entrants to self-identify their gender The Daily Telegraph9 Feb 2024By Jeremy Wilson chief sports Reporter ‘Numerous men losing their s--- over parkrun deleting/hiding data is quite a revelation’ PARKRUN has removed all gender records from its websites amid complaints that trans runners were taking women’s honours. Groups including Women in Sport and the Policy Exchange think tank had urged organisers of the fun run to stop allowing entrants to self-identify their gender. They were backed by the former Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies, who has accused Parkrun of “sex discrimination”. Policy Exchange found in a report that at least three female records were held by transgender women, and campaigners said that by having publicised records for age, gender, number of wins and courses, Parkrun should follow governing bodies such as UK Athletics by protecting a category for women and girls. However, Parkrun argued that it was a community event and public health charity that was primarily about inclusion rather than competitive performance, with records only designed to add interest and widen participation. Campaigners said that women and girls were at risk of being alienated by allowing transgender women in the same female category record lists. The Policy Exchange report, which was also backed by the former tennis player Martina Navratilova and the Olympic gold medallist Daley Thompson, recommended that Sports England should require Parkrun to collect data based on biological sex. They also wanted all records to be updated to reflect such a change. “If this does not happen within 12 months, taxpayers’ funding should be withdrawn,” said the report. Hundreds of Parkrun 5km races take place across the UK each week, involving thousands of runners. Campaigners wearing “Save Women’s Sports” slogans have been protesting against the gender records policy at events on a weekly basis. There was concern, however, that adopting a ‘sex at birth’ policy was not appropriate for an event like Parkrun, where all sexes run together, and would discourage transgender people – whose transition might have been entirely private – from gaining the event’s vast health benefits. Now, Parkrun has decided to remove data from its websites, including course records, age-category records, world Parkrun records as well as statistics for most wins or for getting under a particular time. It will still publish the results every week with simply a position, name, gender, age category and time. Participants can also still search for their run history and age grading, which is a relative measure of the time according to age and gender. It is understood that Parkrun organisers accept that they could have been seen to be presenting the event as a race rather than a community run or walk. They are also adamant that they had been long considering whether so many “performance” metrics were appropriate and were considering changes regardless of the campaign around gender self identification. The move has angered runners who find the data and competitive element to be a major incentive for participation. “Numerous men losing their s--- over Parkrun deleting/hiding data is quite a revelation,” said Mara Yamauchi, the former Olympic marathon runner. “I knew men care deeply about their own sports but this is really something. Shame so many of them have had nothing to say all these years.” The Women’s Rights Network said that Parkrun “would rather stop publishing age category data and rankings rather than allow fair sport for women and girls”, adding: “There’s only been uproar now because they’d rather wipe records than be fair to women.” Parkrun said that the changes had followed a review over many months by a global working group to consider “how we can present data in a way that is not off-putting and doesn’t imply that Parkrun is a race”. This review had concluded that there was a disconnect between the performance data displayed so prominently on the site and the organisation’s “health and happiness” mission, it said. Davies said it would have been “very easy to add course records for trans men and trans women”. She added: “Parkrun have been guilty of sex discrimination for far too long and benefited from millions of pounds in public funding from UK Sport. Keep sport fair for both sexes!” As well as asking for age and gender, Parkrun allows people to choose “prefer not to say” or ‘another gender identity’ but this would mean that the age category, gender, gender position and age grade fields would be blank in the results. Article Name:Parkrun scraps all records to appease trans runners Publication:The Daily Telegraph Author:By Jeremy Wilson chief sports Reporter Start Page:7 End Page:7
The Daily Telegraph9 Feb 2024By Jeremy Wilson chief sports Reporter

According to Parkrun, their events take place at 816 locations across the UK with 3,127,097 finishers. If we assume a 50:50 male:female split, three trans women who hold records equates to a percentage so small it is effectively zero. Three out of 1,563,549. 0.000192%.

There have been 263,214 all-time events, meaning 263,214 chances for someone to claim a ‘record.’ Trans women have grabbed that chance in 0.00114% of the races.

Of course, all of this assumes that Parkrun is a race to begin with, which it isn’t. That’s why they changed their website. Having records was seen as off-putting to some who mistook it for a race. Parkrun isn’t a race. Parkrun, in their own words, “is a free, community event where you can walk, jog, run, volunteer or spectate.” The change had nothing to do with trans people.

Parkrun under pressure to reinstate all-time records The Daily Telegraph13 Feb 2024By Jeremy Wilson PARKRUN organisers are under mounting pressure to reinstate all-time records for participants after nearly 7,000 people signed a petition about the issue in two days. Gender, age group and course records were wiped from websites last week after Parkrun rejected a campaign to compel transgender runners to record their biological sex. Groups including Women in Sport, the Women’s Rights Network and the Policy Exchange, as well as former Olympic athletes Sharron Davies, Daley Thompson and Mara Yamauchi, have urged Parkrun not to allow entrants to self-identify their gender. Last week the Policy Exchange reported that at least three female Parkrun records were held by transgender women, and campaigners said that by having publicised records for age, gender, number of wins and courses, Parkrun must follow governing bodies such as UK Athletics by protecting a natal category for women and girls. Parkrun refused, however, arguing that it is a community event and public health charity that is focused on inclusion rather than competition, and scrapped all-time records from its site. Yet with weekly results still being produced, albeit in a reduced form, campaigners remain adamant that sex-at-birth categories should be introduced to ensure competitive fairness for girls and women. A separate campaign has also been launched that calls for the all-time performance records – which began with Under-11s and went all the way up to over-90s – to be reinstated. A petition went live on Saturday and by yesterday 6,900 people had registered their support. Parkrun has said that the changes to its results page were not influenced by the debate around transgender participation. “We believe that our current solution is the most appropriate available at this time,” a spokesman said. Article Name:Parkrun under pressure to reinstate all-time records Publication:The Daily Telegraph Author:By Jeremy Wilson Start Page:6 End Page:6
The Daily Telegraph 13 Feb 2024 By Jeremy Wilson

Policy Exchange have a history of targeting trans people with bogus reports that erase us from the conversations they want to have about us. They dismiss the lived experiences of trans people, reality being too complex, while using terms that reduce trans people to nothing more than biological components.

Trans ideology is now a growing threat to female grassroots sport The Daily Telegraph29 Dec 2023LOTTIE MOORE Lottie Moore is head of Biology Matters and Equality and Identity at Policy Exchange Until fairly recently, it was considered an unremarkable biological fact that male and female bodies are different and that, within sport, that difference matters substantially. For anyone who believes that biological sex is irrelevant, show them one of the many photographs of a man donning a gold medal, dwarfing a woman on her sports podium, and they will be left scratching their heads. While the debate on sex and gender evolves at pace, sport is one area where most people recognise that biology is crucial. There is a growing sense within sports policy, however, that while the female category should be protected within elite or professional female sports, the rest of us should budge over. Fourteen million women and girls are regularly active in England – and most of us are not professional athletes. But according to many national governing bodies, those of us within grassroots sport are not important enough to warrant safe and fair play. Instead, we must “be kind” and “inclusive” – and allow men who identify as women to steal our records, medals and opportunities. Whether it’s every Saturday at a park run, or at a fun league girls’ football match, gender self-id is rife within grassroots sport. Today, Policy Exchange has published a paper which starts from the premise that all women and girls deserve safety and fairness within sport, not just those at the top. It is endorsed by three world-class athletes who worked their way up through the system: Martina Navratilova, one of the greatest female tennis players of all time, Daley Thompson, the former world-leading decathlete, and Olympic medallist Sharron Davies, who had her own Olympic gold stolen from her aged 17 because of the GDR’S doping scandal in the 80s. They argue that for too long, transgender inclusion has been prioritised over the rights of women and girls. The report shows that, at club, county and other amateur levels, the physical advantages enjoyed by men means that we must protect the female category if the integrity of sport is to be maintained. For example, the winning female from the London Marathon this year would be beaten by the 231st ranking male. Every British long-course swimming record broken by an elite female has been beaten by a teenage boy. Across three different swimming championship race categories analysed, in all but one the slowest winning male would beat the winning female. There is enough sexism in sport as it is. But the efforts of national governing bodies to overcome the sex gap within many sports are undermined if the same people are willing to disregard it when it comes to accommodating a contested set of beliefs surrounding gender identity. Transgender inclusion is specifically only a threat to female sport – there is no similar threat to male sport. This fact matters when we also understand that sport as a whole is still heavily male-dominated. If we want more women and girls to participate in sport, we need safe and fair play. Politicians should expect all national governing bodies to do the right thing and protect female sport. If this is not done within 12 months, the Government should withdraw funding. Politicians on all sides must speak out for women – it really is not rocket science, but very basic biology.
The Daily Telegraph 29 Dec 2023 Lottie Moore is head of Biology Matters and Equality and Identity at Policy Exchange

They exaggerate fears people may have around trans people, focussing heavily on perceived and imagined threats to cis women from trans inclusion. They also exaggerate the size of the fictional ‘problem’, making it seem like trans women are lurking around every corner, just waiting for a chance to grab cis women by the medals.

They cherry pick reports that ‘prove’ what they claim while ignoring a larger body of work that contradicts them. They refuse to engage with the broader, evolving scientific literature, reinforcing the idea of trans people as inherently distinct and incompatible with fairness.

When it comes to policy recommendations, Policy Exchange always opt for trans exclusion. Then they use the same sports mouthpieces to endorse these positions. Sharron Davies, also known as ‘swim Glinner’, wrote the foreword for their recent sports report. Dripping with self-pity for her own failures in the 1980s, Davies rails against trans women because she is too stupid to understand the difference between doping and HRT.

Martina Navratilova, who not so long ago gloated about the suicide of a trans person and suggested they were a sexual abuser, without evidence, is also often wheeled out as a Policy Exchange puppet, as is Daley Thompson who was already a practicing homophobe long before Policy Exchange was founded in 2002.

Of course, none of what the Policy Exchange does would matter if they didn’t have willing ears in both the media and government, and there they have plenty. The Daily Telegraph seems particularly receptive to whatever Policy Exchange shits out of Tufton Street, while it would probably be quicker to list which Tory MPs, Ministers and Peers aren’t connected with them in some way.

Parkrun has let down biological women in its race to be ‘inclusive’ The Daily Telegraph - Saturday10 Feb 2024 Any runner will tell you that timing matters. Some might pretend that it doesn’t, but everyone knows it does. This is even more the case in the age of fitness tracking devices which record your every step, and how fast you’ve taken them. Sure, there are some runners who prefer to exercise “naked” – as in, without wearing an Apple watch or equivalent, but these Luddites definitely seem to be in the minority. Parkrun claims not to be a race, but rather “a free community event and an opportunity to be active, social and outside in a non-competitive, inclusive and welcoming environment”. This is utter nonsense. If you start and finish a run with fellow competitors, then it is a race, regardless of where you finish. The charity behind the 5k “events” has used this as the justification for abruptly removing gender, course and age records from its websites after rejecting a campaign to compel transgender runners to record their sex at birth. It came after the Policy Exchange think tank reported at least three Parkrun female records were held by transgender women. Campaigners argued that Parkrun should follow governing bodies like UK Athletics by protecting a natal category for women and girls. Runners have worked hard to set course records or get under a particular time. Why should these be erased? Article Name:Parkrun has let down biological women in its race to be ‘inclusive’ Publication:The Daily Telegraph - Saturday Start Page:21 End Page:21
The Daily Telegraph – Camilla Tominey Saturday10 Feb 2024

If you want to know why this country is in the state it is, look no further than this triangle – Policy Exchange – Media – Conservatives.

In case you didn’t know – Although they tried to hide it, LGB Alliance are also based at 55 Tufton Street. You can read more about that here in an exclusive from me and Gemma Stone when we broke the story on openDemocracy.

You can read our other coverage of 55 Tufton Street here.

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