Running News Daily

This Software Company Helped Pave the Way for Nonbinary Inclusion in Races

After RunSignup added a nonbinary gender option to their race registration platform, hundreds of events across the U.S. took a vital step towards inclusivity.

Race registration software RunSignup added a nonbinary gender option to its software at the end of January. The software service owns 40 percent of the endurance race market share in the U.S. according to founder Bob Bickel, so hundreds of race directors across the country were paved a smooth first mile on the road to inclusivity.

It’s easy on the race director’s end; they simply click a button on the setup page to add a nonbinary category. But the 29-person software development team at RunSignup worked for almost four months to implement the change. They had to update everything from registration to results to team pages and more. According to Bickel, that meant they updated their source code in over 1,000 different places.

“We started writing our software 12 years ago,” Bickel told Runner’s World. “So much of the software in the industry at that time was based around male and female. It was actually, literally, a binary number in the software code.”

Around the same time RunSignup released the third registration option, Seattle-based nonbinary runner Jake Fedorowski, 26, began building nonbinaryrunning.com, a website dedicated to nonbinary inclusion in races. In addition to a guide released in June to help major races jumpstart their inclusivity initiatives, Fedorowski compiled a database of all the U.S. and international races that offer nonbinary divisions. The database currently lists over 200 events with dedicated nonbinary divisions—the majority of them hosted on RunSignup, which as of now hosts over 2,500 races that at least offer the registration option.

When compiling the database, Fedorowski made sure the races were building out fully-realized nonbinary divisions, not just adding a third checkbox by default.

“I’m going through [the database] line by line and getting in contact with each race to confirm: ‘Have you created a registration option? Are you working on the division part of it? Are you providing awards and prize money?’” Fedorowski said.

RunSignup does make it easier to build out fully-formed nonbinary divisions, even if race directors don’t take advantage. The software is compatible with most timing services, so if a race has male, female, and nonbinary categories upon registration, the timers automatically sort by gender category after the race—which streamlines processing awards. 

While not all races go to such lengths, Bickel credited RunSignup customers for pushing the company to implement these changes: “[They held] our feet to the fire and said, ‘It’s worth doing; this is important to us.’”

RunSignup’s customers aren’t the only races pushing for change. The Philadelphia Distance Run offered equal prize money across male, female, and nonbinary divisions in September 2021, the first to do so. The New York City Marathon established a nonbinary division for its 50th edition in November 2021. The fellow world major marathons in Boston, Chicago, and London recently added nonbinary fields.

Fedorowski encouraged race directors not to stop at the registration option, but look deeper at how they can foster inclusivity.

“If a nonbinary participant shows up to your event and is misgendered, or they have to decide between men’s or women’s spaces or apparel, that experience suddenly becomes very harmful,” said Fedorowski. “The work to create even just the registration option is now all of a sudden outweighed by this negative experience.”

While RunSignup can’t directly impact the on-site race day experience, the company actively advocates for inclusivity.

“We have an annual symposium in July where we made a big point of this feature,” Bickel said. “The message we brought to race directors at this meeting was: This is a way to grow your race. This is a way to not even just attract nonbinary runners, but also show that you care to a new generation of runners—that you’re thinking forward, not backward.”

RunSignup has made updates on the software side, too. The development team recently added a search filter so users can sift for races that offer nonbinary registration. The company will also reinforce their race renewal feature to provide feedback on how to improve a race for its next iteration. For example, if a race director decides not to include a nonbinary division, the software recommends adding one for the next race. RunSignup’s sales representatives and account managers even bring it up directly with race directors.

“We’re not changing the world or anything,” Bickel said. “But, you know, little steps.”