Going through male puberty wasn’t enough to give transgender runner Valentina Petrillo the advantage against female athletes at the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games.
The 51-year-old Italian sprinter failed to make the finals in the women’s T12 200-meter race Friday for visually impaired athletes, coming up short in the semifinals against a much younger field of female athletes.
The four sprinters qualifying for the final were Simran Sharma of India, 24; Hajar Safarzadeh Ghahderijani of Iran, 24; Omara Durand Elias of Cuba, 32, and Alejandra Perez Lopez of Venezuela, 26.
That the middle-aged Petrillo was able to compete credibly against world-class female athletes in their prime comes as evidence of the physical advantages enjoyed by athletes who have undergone male puberty, no matter their gender identity, as far as advocates of single-sex female sports are concerned.
The results ensure Petrillo will not win a medal at the Paralympics after failing to make the final earlier this week in the 400m race, but critics were nonetheless irked by the runner’s appearance in the female category.
British marathoner Mara Yamauchi, a two-time Olympian, pointed out that Petrillo knocked two female competitors out of the semifinals, Brazil’s Lorraine Gomes de Aguiar in the 400m and Spain’s Nagore Folgado Garcia in the 200m.
“Father of two Petrillo is out of the women’s 200m — good. Males should not be in women’s sports,” said Yamauchi in a Friday post on X.
Father of two Petrillo is out of the women’s 200m - good. Males should not be in women’s sports.
— Mara Yamauchi (@mara_yamauchi) September 6, 2024
Great to see Perez Lopez make the final & a PB for Berges Gamez. 👏I feel for Gomes de Aguiar who was excluded from the 400m & for Folgado Garcia who was excluded from these semis. pic.twitter.com/MbFoWqPDoK
The Paralympics require transgender athletes to keep their testosterone in serum levels below 10 nmol/L for at least 12 months before competition, which is still about five times higher than the amount of testosterone produced by adult women.
Petrillo, who fathered two children before transitioning to female at age 45, swung back after British author J.K. Rowling called the athlete an “out and proud cheat,” saying, “I’ve never even read ‘Harry Potter.’”
“I’m not bothered [by] what J.K. Rowling or anyone else says, I’m just here for myself and my family. There’s a lot of transphobia out there and I’m here only to compete and ignoring that outside noise,” said the sprinter, as reported by the [U.K.] Daily Mail.
Sall Glover, founder of the female social-media network Giggle, retorted Friday on X: “I’ve never read Harry Potter either. I’m a JK Rowling fan *because* she calls this guy an ‘out-and-proud cheat’, because he is.”
Petrillo, who was billed as one of the openly first transgender athletes, if not the first, to compete in the Paralympics, entered the arena with raised expectations after taking bronze medals in the 200m and 400m at the 2023 World Para Athletics Championships.
Those cheering Petrillo included OutSports writer Karleigh Webb, who said “she left the track knowing she left everything she had on it.”
“Win or lose, she’s made a statement for herself and another for so many of us pushing towards our goals while pushing against those who’d rather trans women pushed out of women’s sports all together,” said Webb in a Friday article.
Petrillo, who was diagnosed as a teen with a degenerative eye condition called Stargardt disease, captured 11 men’s national competitions from 2015-18 in the male T12 paralympic category before transitioning to female.
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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