Valentina Petrillo, the first openly transgender athlete to compete at the 2024 Paris Paralympics, qualified for the women’s 400m semi-finals on Monday’s Round 1 heats. The Italian track athlete finished a couple of seconds behind Alejandra Paola Pérez López in heat 4, crossing the line on 58.35 seconds with the Venezuelan setting a season’s best time of 56.97.
The 51-year-old, who is visually impaired, had been competing and won several short distance titles as a man until he transitioned in 2019. The World Para Athletic (WPA) insist that Petrillo’s testosterone levels mean she is fit to race against female athletes and was allowed to compete in the Games in Paris. She only just missed out on taking part at the last Games in Tokyo.
Petrillo studied computer science at Bologna’s school for the blind, L’Istituto dei ciechi Francesco Cavazza and played for Italy’s futsal team at international level. She will be competing in two events in Paris – the 200m and 400m.
What does the IOC say about transgender athletes?
International Olympic Committee guidelines allow individual sports to decide on the best approach to balancing inclusion and fairness and while there are no strict rules regarding whether transgender athletes can compete in women’s competition, it states that “each international federation is responsible for setting eligibility rules for its sport, including the eligibility criteria that determine qualification for the Olympic Games”.
IOC guidelines require transgender women to have transitioned before the age of 12 to be eligible for the women’s category, to prevent any potential biological advantage from male puberty.
Not everyone is in favor however, and some feel that there should be a separate category for transgender athletes.
Katrin Müller-Rottgardt, who is also partially sighted and competed in T12 track events, told Bild: “Everyone should live their lives in a way where they feel comfortable but I struggle to understand those beliefs in competitive sport. [Petrillo] has lived and competed as a man for a long time, so there is a possibility that the physical requirements are different to those of someone who was born a woman. That could give her an unfair advantage.”
