‘I can’t help it if I am this way’: The trans sprinter dragged into Paralympics gender war
Paris: No Paralympic athlete has faced as much international scrutiny at the Paralympics as transgender sprinter Valentina Petrillo.
The 51-year-old, vision-impaired Italian is the latest athlete to be thrust into a culture war ever since it emerged she would be competing in the women’s 400-metre and 200-metre races (T12) at the Stade de France.
Valentina Petrillo competes during the 400-metre heat.Credit: Getty Images
On Monday, Paris time, she ran the 400 but crashed out after qualifying for the semi-final, failing to repeat her medal performance at the world championships.
Petrillo ran the sixth-fastest time in the heats, crossing the finish line in 58.35 seconds, three seconds slower than the top qualifier.
She improved in the evening semi-final by almost a second, finishing third in her race, but it wasn’t enough to make the final.
Petrillo was in tears when she spoke to reporters afterwards.
“I hope my son will be proud of me. This is important because he has got a daddy who is trans, and I am not a daddy that everyone would dream of,” she said. “But I can’t help it if I am this way. I am sorry.”
Petrillo took aim at her critics and demanded an end to the mistreatment of the transgender community.
“From today I don’t want to hear anything more about discrimination, prejudices against transgender people,” she said.
“There are lots of people dying only for being trans, people are killed because they are trans, people commit suicide because they are trans and lose their jobs, or [they] are not included in sport. But I made it. If I can make it, everyone can make it.”
Sporting bodies have conflicting positions on transgender competitors. And it is the athletes who are caught in the crosshairs.
‘People are killed because they are trans, people commit suicide because they are trans and lose their jobs, or [they] are not included in sport. But I made it. If I can make it, everyone can make it.’
Valentina Petrillo
Petrillo developed Stargardt disease, a degenerative eye condition, when she was a teenager, and started para-athletics at age 41.
In the three years to 2018, she won 11 Italian national titles in the male category for athletes with her level of vision impairment.
Petrillo came out to her wife as transgender in 2017 and began hormone therapy in 2019.
At last year’s para-athletics world championships, she snagged bronze medals in the women’s 200-metre and 400-metre (T12).
The International Paralympic Committee allows sport governing bodies to set their own policies.
Valentina Petrillo on the track at the Stade de France.Credit: AP
The committee’s president, Andrew Parsons, previously told the BBC that he was prepared for criticism over Petrillo’s inclusion, but under current rules, she was welcome at the Paris Games.
He called for transgender athletes to be treated respectfully but hoped the sporting world reach a united position.
“Science should give us the answer because we also want to be fair with the other athletes in the field of play. It is a very difficult question.”
World Athletics last year banned transgender women from competing in the female category at international events if they transitioned after puberty.
Its counterpart, World Para Athletics, has not followed.
In a statement, a World Para Athletics spokesman said transgender athletes were allowed to compete in the female category so long as they declared their gender identity as female and provided evidence that their testosterone levels had been below 10 nanomoles per litre of blood for at 12 months before their first competition.
The normal adult range of testosterone – a hormone that increases the mass of bone and muscle – can naturally reach about 30 nanomoles per litre of blood in males, and less than 2 nanomoles per litre in females.
In Paris on Monday, Ukrainian runner Oksana Boturchuk said after reaching the 400m final that she did not support transgender athletes being allowed to compete against women.
“I find this not fair, in my opinion. I am not against transgenders in general but in this situation I do not understand and don’t support it,” the Tokyo silver medallist told the BBC.
The World Para Athletics spokesman said any changes to its position would only come after appropriate consultation and consideration of the rights of all involved.
Petrillo has been subjected to steady backlash in international media in the past year. Spain’s Melani Berges, who missed out on making the Paralympics after competing against Petrillo, told local press it was an “injustice”, and she was backed by the Spanish Paralympic Committee in calling for rules to change.
The International Paralympic Committee says that Petrillo is not the first transgender athlete to compete at a Paralympic Games as has been widely reported. Holland’s Ingrid van Kranen finished ninth in the women’s discus final in Rio 2016.
But interest in Petrillo has been heightened as her appearance at the Games coincides with a period in which transgender rights are at the forefront of public discourse.
It also follows the case of female Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, who was pulled into the heart of a media storm after some critics questioned her eligibility to participate in the Paris Olympics before she defiantly went on to win a gold medal.
The stories of Khelif and Petrillo are not the same. Khelif is not transgender – she was born a woman and lives as a woman – and the controversy stemmed from a decision by the International Boxing Association to disqualify her, an association that is Russia-linked and was banned from the Olympics.
However, in both situations major sporting bodies are being forced to reckon with questions around gender and biology; inclusion and advantage.
These are complex issues but it’s on the sport authorities to come up with solutions. For now, Petrillo will keep playing by the rules of the sport she loves.
She’ll be back on Friday to fight for a place in the 200-metre finals. Her focus is not on the noise surrounding her, but on the track.
“How will it be outside [in the wider world]? Outside, it’s not beautiful as it is here, it’s not all purple, it’s not like this,” she said.
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