A Labour MP recently criticised the weekly fun run for its inclusion of trans women following the Supreme Court’s gender ruling
BY NIC CROSARA, IMAGE BY FITSUM ADMASU
Labour MP and former police officer Jonathan Hinder made comments in the House of Commons on Thursday (3 July) relating to trans participation in sport. He asked Lisa Nandy, the secretary of state for culture, media and sport, “what discussions she has had with sports governing bodies on ensuring that they are compliant with the Supreme Court judgement in the case of For Women Scotland v. The Scottish Ministers”.
The ruling, which was handed down in April, stated that the legal definition of the protected characteristic of “sex” in the 2010 Equality Act referred to “biological sex” only. Following this controversial ruling, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) issued interim guidance which called for transgender women and men to be banned from single-sex facilities and services which matched their gender, and in some cases even from those which matched their “biological sex”.
Sporting bodies such as the Football Association have already moved to follow the EHRC guidance and to exclude trans women from female competition.
Answering Hinder, Nandy said: “We have discussed the ruling with Sport England and UK Sport. It obviously has profound implications for sport as a whole, and those organisations are currently considering the implications for their own guidance.”
“We are keen to support them in that, but my hon. Friend will know that national governing bodies set their own policies for who can participate in domestic competition,” Nandy added.
“More than two months after the Supreme Court clarified the law, there remains a very long list of sporting bodies which are denying fairness to women and girls,” responded Hinder. “This includes Parkrun and, remarkably, sports like weightlifting and wrestling.”
Hinder then called for Nandy to agree that these bodies should take the prime minister’s advicea and “get on with it”.
Now, if you know what a Parkrun is, I’d like to think that, no matter your stance on trans participation in sport, you’re perplexed as to why there’s so much hysteria surrounding people of all genders participating in a non-competitive fun run. But if you’ve never heard of a Parkrun before, here’s everything you need to know.
What is a Parkrun?
It is a volunteer-led initiative where people can register to take part in a timed 5km route. You can run it, or walk it. It’s free to enter and it takes place every Saturday. It’s open to everyone, regardless of age or ability. All you have to do to take part is register on the website beforehand. There is an emphasis that no one comes last as this is not a competitive run.
Where is Parkrun?
At the time of writing, there are 1,342 Parkrun events around the country with weekly events taking place every weekend, and more locations are constantly added.
Why are trans people allowed to participate?
Firstly, while Parkrun allows people to sign up and self-identify their gender, it’s not a gendered competition. It’s not even a competition. Everyone of all genders, ages and abilities runs the same route, at the same time. Some people participate in wheelchairs, some pushing their babies in strollers, some run next to their children. It really is for all and it’s whatever the individual wants to make for it.
While some people travel from all over the country to complete as many different 5k routes as possible, at the heart of it, it’s a community-building fitness movement that encourages people to come together and get moving in any way they can on a regular basis.
So if you are calling for trans people – particularly trans women – to be excluded from Parkruns, you are calling for them to not have equal access to community, health and wellbeing.
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