Valentina Petrillo set a personal best at the Paris Paralympics on Monday, but it wasn’t enough to qualify for Tuesday’s 400m T12 final. Losing to two cisgender women wasn’t enough to quell the storm of transphobia and hatred directed at the first-time transgender Paralympic runner on social media.
Iran’s Hajar Safarzadeh Ghaderijani was the first to cross the goal line, followed by Venezuela’s Alejandra Perez. Italian sprinter Petrillo took third place with 57.58 points.
“I tried until the end, but I couldn’t do it,” Petrillo, 51, told reporters after the race. “I missed the last straight. I tried harder than I did this morning. They’re stronger than me. There’s nothing I can do. I have to get a 56 to get to the final. I didn’t. I can’t, 57.58. I have to be happy even if I’m a little upset.”
Petrillo spoke indirectly about haters, but she said she was most concerned about the perspective of her 9-year-old son, Lorenzo, who calls him “dad.”
“I hope my son is proud of me,” Petrillo said through tears. “It’s important to me because I’m a transgender father and I’m not the father everyone dreams of being, but I hope he’s proud of me. I hope he’s always by my side. I hope he loves me even if I’m like this. I can’t help it. Please don’t treat transgender people badly. We are suffering. It’s not fair. We won’t hurt anyone.”
JK Rowling disagrees.
The outspoken opponent of transgender rights and inclusion slammed Petrillo as a “brazen fraudster” in a social media post, originally Twitter.
Why do I feel so angry at the inspirational Petrillo? The cheating community has never had this level of visibility. Proud cheats like Petrillo prove that the days of shaming cheats are over. She is truly a role model! He says he’ll give Lance Armstrong his medal back and move on. #cheat #noshame pic.twitter.com/bvqhs3DexI
— JK Rowling (@jk_rowling) September 2, 2024
Others accused Petrillo of being a “pervert,” a “disgrace,” and, of course, a man, a “biological male” who “deprived young women with disabilities of the opportunity to compete.”
🚨Breaking news🚨
A biologically male runner has qualified for the women’s 400m T12 semi-finals at the Paris Paralympics.
Valentina Petrillo, a father of two, won 11 national titles in the men’s division before he began to identify as a woman. pic.twitter.com/7CqLuFD8dB
— REDUXX (@ReduxxMag) September 2, 2024
50-year-old Italian transgender athlete Valentina Petrillo today denied a young woman with a disability a place in the semi-finals of the Paris Paralympic Games.
Petrillo previously said people who don’t want Petrillo to compete with women are “on the same level as Hitler.” pic.twitter.com/DLU2hxWEVD
— Visegrad 24 (@visegrad24) September 2, 2024
Petrillo has another chance to compete for a medal this Friday in the 200m T12 visually impaired competition. She will face Germany’s Katrin Müller Rottgart.
“Basically, everyone should live their daily life the way they like,” Müller-Rottgart told German tabloid Bild. “But I think it’s difficult in professional sports. Having lived and trained as a man for so long, her physical condition may be different than someone who came into the world as a woman. So she gets an advantage from that. There is a possibility that
Petrillo won’t let her detractors stop her from running and living as a woman.
“There are a lot of people who die just because they are transgender, people who are killed just because they are transgender, people who commit suicide because they lose their jobs or can’t participate in sports because they are transgender.” she said. “But I accomplished it. If I can accomplish it, anyone can accomplish it.”
Regarding the so-called “advantages,” Petrillo cites an IOC-funded study. Published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine in April The study shows that trans women are at a physical disadvantage compared to cis women in several areas, including lung function and lower body strength.
“Rather, this means I’m at a disadvantage, because undergoing hormone therapy means I’m going against my body, and it means going against my body’s biology.” And it’s certainly not good for you,” Petrillo told The Associated Press. In an interview in the suburbs of Bologna, where she lives and works in the IT industry.
She was diagnosed with Stargardt disease, a degenerative eye disease, at the age of 14 and can only see 1/50th.th Something that most people can do. Mr. Petrillo told me that he cannot drive and uses public transportation to get around. 2020 Podcast Interview The trauma of her disability has haunted her for years.
“I tried to live as normal a life as possible,” she said through an interpreter.
As a teenager, he had to give up running due to his symptoms, but in his 40s he started running again, saying, “Knowing that I have two good legs gave me strength.” spoke. “Running is life.”
But that wasn’t enough. Petrillo, who was raised as a boy, said he had kept a secret since childhood and knew who he was even at the age of seven. “I didn’t feel like myself.”
“After years of fighting with myself and not understanding what was wrong with me, I decided to transition,” Petrillo said. “It was a very difficult decision.”
Petrillo came out to his wife Elena in 2017, just a year after they got married. With Elena’s support, she transitioned in 2018 and began her medical transition in January of the following year. They remained married for some time and have another child besides Lorenzo. “My wife is very supportive,” Petrillo told me in 2020. “Ninety-nine percent of the stories end in divorce, but my wife is the love of my life.”
Elena and Valentina have since divorced, but remain friends. She, Lorenzo, and Petrillo’s brother Francesco were in Paris to support her.
“Family is everything,” she said this week.
Petrillo won 11 national championships in the men’s T12 category from 2015 to 2018 and went on to become the first woman to win gold medals in the T12 events 100m, 200m and 400m at the 2020 Italian Paralympic Championships. Obtained. She won two bronze medals at last year’s World Para Athletics Championships.
In that competition, she narrowly defeated Spain’s Melani Verges, who placed fourth in the semifinals. In other words, Berges missed out on advancing to the finals and missed out on the chance to compete in the Paralympics.
Verges told Spanish sports site Relevo that this was “unfair” and that she “accepts and respects” transgender people, but added: “We no longer care about everyday life. “I’m not talking about sports that require strength and physique.”
The International Paralympic Committee said it “welcomes” Petrillo, who is not the first trans Paralympian. That honor is Dutch discus thrower Ingrid van Kranenenfinished 9th at the 2016 Rio Games. World Para Athletics rules state that anyone who is legally recognized as a woman is eligible to compete in the women’s category. She legally changed her name and gender in 2023.
Back in 2020, Petrillo told me that the 200 meter race she will be competing in this Friday is her favorite. That’s because of her personal hero, Pietro Menea, the 1980 Olympic champion and Italy’s world record holder in this event.
“I dream of this,” she said, recalling the memory of watching him compete when she was 7 years old. “The determination that Menea showed was what he taught us all. That’s what you feel when you run. The same determination, the same drive.” And she said again, “To run. is life.”
Source: Washington Blade: LGBTQ News, Politics, LGBTQ Rights, Gay News – www.washingtonblade.com
