Raging runners are planning a mass protest calling on Parkrun organisers to stop allowing trans competitors who were born male to register as female. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled last year that the term woman refers strictly to the biological sex assigned at birth, making it against the law for organisations not to provide single sex spaces for women.
It was a decision the Government said brought clarity to female sport, after several sporting bodies had already banned transgender women taking part in female events. But Parkrun is now coming under renewed scrutiny. In 2024, the BBC reports, the charity deleted all records from its website when campaigners previously demanded it exclude transgender athletes from its women’s category.
Parkrun began with just 13 runners at London’s Bushy Park in 2004 but has grown into one of Britain’s largest grassroots sporting movements. Participants can run, jog, walk or volunteer.
Fiona McAnena, from the Sex Matters campaign group, said the message from parkrun to women and girls at the moment was “your achievements don’t matter” and that they were putting men’s “feelings head of yours”.