GiveSignup | RunSignup releases support for inclusive gender options in event registration

GiveSignup | RunSignup released the second phase of a four-phase effort to better support inclusive and flexible gender options within the event registration process. This ongoing project offers a solution to the increasing number of events that want to provide flexible gender options for virtual events, non-competitive events, and traditional endurance races.

The release of the second phase builds on an earlier update that allowed a person to set their profile to male, female or non-binary. With the latest update, event directors can opt to enable the non-binary option during registration as well as in a participant’s profile setup. Over the upcoming months, phase three will allow for events to add custom categories like “Transgender”, “Trans Man”, or “Prefer Not to Answer”, and phase four will provide an update to RaceDay Scoring to help timers fully support the scoring of races with multiple gender categories.

While there have been races like The Philly 10K that have prioritized inclusion in recent years, progress has been slow and limited by technology. GiveSignup | RunSignup Founder and CEO Bob Bickel acknowledged, “Male and female categories have long been entrenched in the endurance community, but this is a change that we, and many of our customers, have wanted to make for a long time. For our customers, inclusive gender categories mean re-thinking things like awards, timing, recognition. And from a technology standpoint, the shift requires updates in over 1,000 places in our code. We are grateful that our customers have continued to push us to come up with solutions instead of workarounds, and in return, we hope this can help the endurance community move forward with embracing diversity.”

GiveSignup | RunSignup customer Kathy Dalby, CEO/Partner at Pacers Running, wrote this week about her personal efforts to overcome the systematic challenges that have kept the endurance industry locked into a binary mindset. She commented, “RunSignup is pushing for evolution to acknowledge all runners and literally using their platform to do so. As allies it’s up to us to keep challenging the narrative, and I’m proud to amplify the efforts of partners like RunSignup. We aren’t where we need to be as an industry and a community especially as it relates to discrimination of non-binary and trans athletes. However, acknowledgement of the responsibility of those who hold power to enact change, as evidenced by the industry’s leader in this space, is a major step forward.”

GiveSignup | RunSignup is asking for input to help guide the implementation of phase three and invites all event directors to respond to a quick two-question survey. For more information about the four-phase effort, visit: https://runsignup.blog/2021/11/08/non-binary-option-for-registration/.