I am grateful to all the fantastic volunteers and organisers of ParkRun here in my East Grinstead and Uckfield constituency and around the country. Their efforts and enthusiasm ensure that so many local people can take part every week in these amazing free community events of which there are several established ones across our area. As a local Councillor, I helped set up and establish the Clair Hall Park Run and founded the Mid Sussex Marathon Weekend, our London 2012 legacy event, which is more than a decade old and is thriving annually in May across the three Mid Sussex Towns.
While the beauty of ParkRun is that people can participate for a wide range of different reasons, it is also true that each local event is competitive in nature. Across the UK, ParkRun is the largest amateur, competitive weekly running event by participation. I know from my experiences people partake to improve consistency, pace and speed. People look at their times, the courses and reflect on their performance and experiences.
In 2024, ParkRun announced statistics such as course records, most first-place finishes, and age grade records would no longer be published for either the women’s or men’s categories. Now whether this was in response to complaints of transwomen taking multiple women’s parkrun course records or simply as an effort to increase inclusivity and participation is up for debate but it was clearly not a popular decision. A petition to reinstate this data quickly reached around 30,000 signatures with many hoping to restore access to key competitive statistics in some form or other.
However, it has been recently announced that, as of May 2026, the official Park Run website will continue its non-competitive, inclusive, community focus with performance related stats like ‘fastest times’ and ‘most first finishes’ not returning.
As many of my constituents will know, the Supreme Court ruled on the definition of a “woman”, “man” and “sex” for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010 in April 2025. I welcomed this ruling which protects the rights of women and girls – to safety and fairness - as well as offering clarity to service providers who provide single-sex spaces and sports. However, as I wrote at the time,
‘I fully recognise, and understand greatly, that the Supreme Court’s recent judgement has caused distress to many transgender and non-binary people, including in East Grinstead and Uckfield, and I do honestly sympathise - I understand most people just want to be able to quietly get on with their own lives.
The Supreme Court did clearly state that transgender people remain protected by the indirect discrimination provisions of the Equality Act 2010 (irrespective of whether they have a Gender Recognition Certificate). The judgement also reaffirmed that trans people are also protected from indirect discrimination where they are put at a particular disadvantage they share with members of their biological sex. I strongly support this.’
‘Saying ‘trans-women are women’ was never true in fact and is not true in law; I do not believe that you can change your biological sex but you can, of course, identify as your chosen gender. Please, however, know that I firmly support rights for transgender people under the law’
Mims Davies MP Statement on the Supreme Court Ruling | Mims Davies
I wholeheartedly do believe everyone should have the freedom to live their own lives and contribute to British society, regardless of their sex, sexual orientation or gender identity. While the Supreme Court’s judgement has been contested, it actually makes no change to the legal protections for transgender people in law, including against discrimination and harassment. Being transgender also rightly remains a protected characteristic under the Equality Act.
To that end, I am not aware of anyone calling for transwomen or indeed any trans identifying people to be excluded from ParkRuns, whether this be participating or competing in ParkRun events, as is being reported. Should this be found to be the case, I would condemn it in the strongest possible terms. However, asking biological males who identify as trans or non-binary to run or compete as part of an open category is not exclusionary; women and girls do have a right to fair competition.
Every week, local ParkRuns rank registered participants according to their timing, gender and age category – reflecting common practice in other competitive running events. If ParkRun or affiliated sites choose to publish statistics such as personal best timings and all-time records for different events, I do believe it is only right this competition should be assessed fairly, particularly for women who are competing against biological men.
Again, I want to stress that no one is advocating for transgender people to be excluded from ParkRun but asking participants to register according to their sex at birth would help protect the integrity of the competition element, allowing interesting and useful data that so many runners clearly valued, gleaned in local ParkRun events across the UK, to be shared. However, this point now seems moot in the light of their recent announcement and I know many participants feel disappointed by their actions and recent choice.
