Previously, I had to watch the debate over Catalan and Castellano descend into farce. And then it came to my own shore as "curry my yogurt" and "every word a bullet" reduced the noble cause of language learning into a bigoted battle between "Us'uns and them'uns".
The voice of tolerance and reason drowned out by the perpetually angry. Sport too, alas, has become a vacuum for honest, reasonable debate.
The latest "victim" is Park Run. I don't run because my knees and back no longer permit me, but I used to and I loved it. My brother is an avid Park Runner and it is hard to think of a better example of community activism in recent years.
Anyone can do a Park Run. It is open to all and it is totally free.
You don't even have to run it. If you can only walk it, that is fine.
The volunteers will wait while you finish the 5km course. It has been the catalyst for many people returning to exercise, mostly through the "couch to 5k" route. Thousands of people across the UK have started exercising regularly due to Park Run and thus thousands of citizens have improved their health.
Your time is logged by a transponder, so that you can track your fitness over time. Some people walk the course every week, some jog/run, many take babies in prams, while others are more competitive and run it as fast as they can. That said, it is not a race, but many amateur athletes like to push themselves to be the best version of themselves possible. Each Park Run course is different, obviously, and so times vary between locations. Many people, my bro included, visit different Park Runs to see if they can improve their times or to get the fastest time in their catagory. Times are catagorised by gender and age. And therein lies the problem.
Many men have changed their gender on the Park Run website and "stolen" best times from women athletes. Many of the women complained, so Park Run decided to stop showing the times rather than allocating the athletes' times to their gender at birth. It is beyond debate that if you have experienced puberty as a boy you will have an enormous advantage over women in terms of muscle density, mass and VO2 Max i.e. you can run/cycle/row/ski faster.
Many notable women, including JK Rowling and Martina Navratilova, took to Twitter to defend women's sport yet again from male prejudice. It is women's records that are being taken, women's medals being taken, women's places on teams being taken by mediocre men. Men who did poorly in men's sport, all of a sudden can "change" their gender and take what is not theirs to take. Yet, anyone who tries to defend women's sport are deemed "right wing". There is nothing right wing about it.
In a diabolical piece in The Guardian, sports writer Jonathan Liew accused women's rights defenders as trying to "erase trans women from physical sport". And this is where it gets so, so frustrating. No-one is trying to stop trans people from participating. I want sport for all, as does JK Rowling, Martina Navratilova et al. We are the classic liberals who have supported LGBT rights for decades, now we are branded right wing. WTF? Surely Park Run can rule that, due to male born advantage, all times will be categorised by "gender at birth" or even create a trans category. No-one wants to see trans people barred from Park Run or from participating in any sport. How anyone identifies and dresses is nobody's business but their own, but all sporting bodies must recognise those born male have a significant physical advantage that lowering testosterone will not negate, and that women should not have their rights and safe spaces reduced to accommodate male born individuals. At the end of the day, any male born athlete competing in a woman's event is cheating. Pure and simple.
The voice of tolerance and reason drowned out by the perpetually angry. Sport too, alas, has become a vacuum for honest, reasonable debate.
The latest "victim" is Park Run. I don't run because my knees and back no longer permit me, but I used to and I loved it. My brother is an avid Park Runner and it is hard to think of a better example of community activism in recent years.
Anyone can do a Park Run. It is open to all and it is totally free.
You don't even have to run it. If you can only walk it, that is fine.
The volunteers will wait while you finish the 5km course. It has been the catalyst for many people returning to exercise, mostly through the "couch to 5k" route. Thousands of people across the UK have started exercising regularly due to Park Run and thus thousands of citizens have improved their health.
Your time is logged by a transponder, so that you can track your fitness over time. Some people walk the course every week, some jog/run, many take babies in prams, while others are more competitive and run it as fast as they can. That said, it is not a race, but many amateur athletes like to push themselves to be the best version of themselves possible. Each Park Run course is different, obviously, and so times vary between locations. Many people, my bro included, visit different Park Runs to see if they can improve their times or to get the fastest time in their catagory. Times are catagorised by gender and age. And therein lies the problem.
Many men have changed their gender on the Park Run website and "stolen" best times from women athletes. Many of the women complained, so Park Run decided to stop showing the times rather than allocating the athletes' times to their gender at birth. It is beyond debate that if you have experienced puberty as a boy you will have an enormous advantage over women in terms of muscle density, mass and VO2 Max i.e. you can run/cycle/row/ski faster.
Many notable women, including JK Rowling and Martina Navratilova, took to Twitter to defend women's sport yet again from male prejudice. It is women's records that are being taken, women's medals being taken, women's places on teams being taken by mediocre men. Men who did poorly in men's sport, all of a sudden can "change" their gender and take what is not theirs to take. Yet, anyone who tries to defend women's sport are deemed "right wing". There is nothing right wing about it.
In a diabolical piece in The Guardian, sports writer Jonathan Liew accused women's rights defenders as trying to "erase trans women from physical sport". And this is where it gets so, so frustrating. No-one is trying to stop trans people from participating. I want sport for all, as does JK Rowling, Martina Navratilova et al. We are the classic liberals who have supported LGBT rights for decades, now we are branded right wing. WTF? Surely Park Run can rule that, due to male born advantage, all times will be categorised by "gender at birth" or even create a trans category. No-one wants to see trans people barred from Park Run or from participating in any sport. How anyone identifies and dresses is nobody's business but their own, but all sporting bodies must recognise those born male have a significant physical advantage that lowering testosterone will not negate, and that women should not have their rights and safe spaces reduced to accommodate male born individuals. At the end of the day, any male born athlete competing in a woman's event is cheating. Pure and simple.
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| Peter Anderson is a Unionist with a keen interest in sports |
