Trans-Identifying Man, 50, Will Compete With Women In Paralympics

A trans-identifying male runner from Italy will compete alongside women in the Paralympics in Paris.

Valentina Petrillo, 50, began identifying as a transgender woman in 2018 and began taking cross-sex hormones the next year. He has claimed he knew he was female from as young as age nine.

“I deserve this selection,” he told the BBC, adding that “everyone will have their questions,” but only a “minority” will understand his story.

“The historic value of being the first transgender woman to compete at the Paralympics is an important symbol of inclusion,” Petrillo said.

Petrillo will compete for Italy in the T12 classification for athletes with visual impairments. He was diagnosed as a child with Stargardt’s syndrome, a condition where people lose their central vision over time but often keep their peripheral vision.

He previously competed in the men’s running category and won 11 national titles. Last year, he also won bronze in both the women’s 200 and 400-meter races at the Para Athletics World Championships.

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This summer’s Paris Paralympics run from August 28 to September 8.

The International Paralympic Committee allows each sport’s governing body to decide whether trans-identifying athletes can compete. For track and field that body is World Para Athletics, which says that anyone legally recognized as a woman can compete in the women’s category.

Petrillo claimed his “metabolism has changed” since taking cross-sex hormones, and he is “not the energetic person” he once was.

“As a sportsperson, to accept that you won’t go as fast as before is difficult. I had to accept this compromise, because it is a compromise, for my happiness,” he said.

Asked what he would say to those who say his competing against women is unfair, Petrillo said, “This is not a lifestyle choice for me, this is who I am.”

He also argued that the times trans-identifying athletes stood out for their sporting results have been “very few and far between.”

The Paris Olympics is already in the middle of another gender-related controversy this summer after two boxers in the women’s category were revealed to have XY chromosomes.

Imane Khelif of Algeria and Lin Yu‑ting of Taiwan were both disqualified from the Women’s World Boxing Championships last year after their chromosome tests came back as XY, according to the president of the International Boxing Association at the time.

However, both boxers were allowed to fight women in the Olympics this year, and both won gold medals.

Khelif won the welterweight gold medal on Friday after winning every round of every fight. Yu-ting won gold in the featherweight final match on Saturday.