Valentina Petrillo is visually impaired, a fact that is obvious to everyone.
The Italian sprinter, who will become the first transgender athlete to compete in the Paralympics later this month, is a powerfully built biological male who should not be competing against women on the world stage.
Still, it’s a different game, but it’s the same old story: men identify as women and the doors of women’s space magically open for them, truth be damned.
Before her gender transition in 2019, Petrillo won 11 national titles in the blind division as a man. Last summer, she won bronze medals in the women’s 200 and 400 meters at the World Para Athletics Championships.
Petrillo, 50; He told BBC Sport He said competing in the tournament, which kicks off in Paris on August 28, would be “an important symbol of inclusion”.
And it’s insanity: Why, why do we continue to cede basic fairness to this complicated notion of inclusion, especially when it comes to women’s sports, where a once-level playing field has been overrun by transgender athletes with a biological advantage?
This happens in almost every sport: cycling, swimming, weightlifting.
Strictly speaking, Petrillo’s competing in the women’s division is not against the rules, but it’s unfair. The International Paralympic Committee allows each sport’s governing body to set its own rules, and World Para Athletics, the international federation for athletics, says individuals who are legally recognized as women can compete in the women’s division.
International Paralympic Committee (IPC) president Andrew Parsons said he was “prepared for criticism” for allowing Petrillo to compete against women in Paris.
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“But we have to respect our rules. We can’t flout our rules. So as individuals we may quibble at times, but we have to follow our constitution, we have to follow our own rules and in certain sports we have to respect the rules of the international federations,” Parsons said, adding that Petrillo would be “welcome like any other athlete.”
If Petrillo was like any other athlete, no one would care.
Indeed, people will be rooting for the Italian, who excelled in the sport despite being diagnosed with Stargardt’s disease, a progressive eye condition, at age 14. Anyone who can overcome a physical disability to compete at this level should be celebrated.
But Petrillo, who was born Fabrizio and went through male puberty, is essentially running with a physical advantage that some might call cheating.
“I deserve to be chosen,” Petrillo boldly told the BBC, adding: “This is not a lifestyle choice for me, it’s who I am.”
“And my version of who I am, along with all transgender people who feel they do not belong to their biological sex, should not be discriminated against, just as race, religion or political ideology should not be discriminated against.”
Yes, that’s true, but your feelings don’t trump biological truth.And perhaps this should lead to a third open category.
Even Parsons acknowledged that the debate will probably never be resolved.
“I think the sports world needs to be guided by science and come up with better answers for these situations and for transgender athletes,” he said. “We need to come up with better and maybe uniform answers for this population, based on science.”
But science already has the answer: We know that men are, on average, faster and stronger than women.
The Paralympics are a beautiful and important event, a showcase of the human spirit and resilience in the face of circumstances.
And these elite, hard-working athletes, who make the same sacrifices and train just as hard as top able-bodied athletes, deserve to be treated equally.
