On the morning of September 2nd, at the Stade de France, Italian Paralympic sprinter Valentina Petrillo’s dream came true.
As she walked into the stadium with the qualifiers for the T12 visually impaired 400m, she was still a little nervous, not so much about the competition itself but about worrying that her chances would be thwarted because she was a transgender woman competing in the women’s division.
“When I got on the plane to Paris, I still had doubts,” she recently told Outsports magazine. “I was still afraid that something would stop me from running. I didn’t think my dream had come true, and it still doesn’t fully sink in now.”
She reached the semi-finals in both the 200m and 400m at the Paris Paralympics. Since then, her story has reached a wider audience and she has garnered a lot of support on social media and across Italy.
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“Before, I wasn’t that well known, but now I’m recognized by a lot of transgender and non-transgender people,” she said. “There’s been a change in attitude and the response has been positive.”
Her popularity has grown in part because of best-selling author J.K. Rowling, who has long focused on attacks on transgender women. During the Paralympics, Rowling called Petrillo part of the “cheater community” and compared him to real-life drug cheater and former professional cyclist Lance Armstrong.
Petrillo fired back with some of the best criticism in sports this year.
“I was surprised that Rowling made the comments about me.” Petrillo spoke to RAI Sport after his first 200m race on September 6th. “I hear she wrote Harry Potter. I haven’t read it yet. And she writes about gender-neutral sports in the books, so I was expecting a bit more from Rowling.”
Petrillo continues to push back against common tropes used against her, and also cites the example of Cuban sprinter Omara Durand, 11-time Paralympic gold medalist and three-time world record holder, who has been the coveted (cisgender) star of all athletes for over a decade.
“I’m still amazed that Rowling is wasting her time calling me a cheat,” she recalled. “Think about Cuban 400-meter runner Omara Durand. She runs 400 meters in 51 seconds. I’ve never run that in my life.”
She laughed off the criticism and hostility from fellow competitors, noting that while some outsiders paid close attention to her sport, others were there to support her.
Petrillo specifically singled out the man she was trying to take down: Iran’s Hajar Safarzadeh Ghaderijani In Duran’s absence, he qualified for the Paralympics after winning gold at the 2024 World Para Athletics Championships in May.
On paper, there’s a conflict waiting to happen between cisgender Iranian women and transgender women in Western countries, but Petrillo points out that the opposite has happened.
“She was really nice,” Petrillo said of Gaderjani. “We got along well in the call room before and after the race and she was very positive in her comments to the press. I want to thank her for being so open with me.”
Valentina Petrillo was reborn four years ago‘
Petrillo’s path to Paris was a winding one after he was diagnosed at age 14. Stargardt DiseaseEye diseases that cause retinal degeneration usually begin in childhood and resolve by adulthood, often leaving people with vision of 20/200 or worse.
As Petrillo got more comfortable, she focused on her career as a computer programmer and on running. When she went to college in 1994, she joined a sports club and showed great potential. Her coach told her that the Paralympics were coming up in Atlanta in two years and she might be able to participate.
“My trainer told me I could get there, but I just didn’t feel right,” she recalled in an interview with Outsports in 2020. “My mind was going crazy. I felt like I was a different person and I was anxious, but I couldn’t express it.”
She missed out on the 1996 Paralympics, and her gender dysphoria intensified. By 2016, she had a job, a marriage, children and a childhood memory of a cousin being disowned for being transgender. Given her own views from her childhood, the decision seemed clear to her.
She returned to athletics – she competed in 11 national para-athletics championships between 2016 and 2018 – but the strain of keeping her transgender identity a secret became too much.
“I dressed up and hid in the bathroom so they wouldn’t find me,” Petrillo recalled. “I didn’t understand it. I didn’t know who to turn to for help. I decided to keep this secret to myself.”
Petrillo came out to his then-wife in 2017 and began to make changes in both his life and his sport.
She lobbied the national governing body for parasport. FISPES (Italian Federation of Paralympic and Experimental Sports) — asked World Para Athletics to allow her to compete as a woman in accordance with its rules. FISPES refused, telling her she must compete as a man.
Recently released documentaries “5 nano-mori” She has been fighting a long battle for recognition, but she has finally won: in 2020, she finally competed in the Italian National Para Athletics Championships as a woman and won.
But disappointment came in 2021, when she was denied a place on Italy’s national team for the Tokyo Paralympics, despite setting a qualifying record after reclassification.
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Her disappointment and hope for Paris motivated her: In 2023, Petrillo will compete at the World Para Athletics Championships in Paris, where she will win bronze medals in the 200 and 400 meters.
Despite being an athlete in her late 50s, her investment in herself has paid off. “I had a rebirth four years ago,” she said of her transformation. “This running transcends age and class. I was passionate about this sport.”
Petrillo was also inspired by his 9-year-old son, Lorenzo, who was in Paris with his ex-wife, Elena, and daughter, Caterina. Although a disappointing finish in the 200m semifinals marked the end of Petrillo’s Paralympic career, he made his way to be with his son. The two embraced and tearfully recounted the end of their struggle.
The moment was captured on television cameras and screenshotted widely. “I asked Lorenzo to sacrifice so much for this, and I can never get that time back,” she said. “It was important to me that he did it, because finally he understands why I did what I did and what the consequences are.”
“I was crying at that moment,” she fondly recalled, “and continued to cry for hours afterward.”
Valentina Petrillo does not rule out competing in the LA28 Paralympics
Prior to this interview, Petrillo was a track and field athlete, and she has her sights set on the World Para Athletics Championships in Colombia next year, and the Paralympics in Los Angeles in 2028, where she may compete at the opening ceremony when she turns 55.
“I wasn’t happy at all with my run in Paris,” Petrillo said. “I don’t think I’ve reached my physical limits yet. I can push myself harder, especially in the 400 meters, so I’m not giving up anything in the future.”
Another of her goals is to speak out for transgender rights, having spoken at Pride House during the Paralympics and in numerous interviews since then, consistently speaking out about issues outside of sport.
When asked what she would say to Italy’s anti-LGBTQ Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, she replied: “I want to tell you that transgender people are not scary and to stop using violence against us. We just want to exist and live happy lives.”
The message she wants to share now is about the most important lesson she’s learned from her own journey – another thought that came to mind as she was judged on her first morning as a Paralympic athlete.
“When I started, I thought about everything I’d given up in my life to achieve this,” she said, “and I also recognized that this journey, this process that I went through, was going to be important to other people like me.”
Source: Outsports – www.outsports.com
