“The welcome was fantastic, the weather is fantastic, the color of the pitch is fantastic. Everything is purple, and that’s my favorite color.” Italian Valentina Petrillo knew exactly what news’s reporter Morten Stenberg really wanted to talk about when he wondered what it had been like to run at the Stade de France this morning at the beginning of September. And it wasn’t the color of the track cover. Because Petrillo had just become historic. As the first trans person in a running exercise in a Paralympics. Valentina Petrillo (left) on the purple running track at the Stade de France in Paris. Photo: AP And as the second in the Games overall, after the Dutch Ingrid von Kranen, who took part in the discus in Rio in 2016. Von Kranen died in 2021. Through Petrillo’s participation in Paris, the debate around transgender people in sport is still kept alive to the highest degree. From Fabrizio to Valentina Petrillo was born a male and was diagnosed with Stargardt’s disease as a 14-year-old at home in Naples. This is a genetically determined retinal disease that the Norwegian parasprint star Salum Kashafali is also affected by. The incurable disease means that Petrillo has 2 percent of normal vision. Nevertheless, she was the only one in her test heat of 400 meters in class T12 who ran without a companion. As a 50-year-old. In the women’s class T12. It was at the age of 41 that Petrillo resumed running and won 11 Italian championships in the men’s para class until 2018. Valentina Petrillo marked herself as the only one in her heat without a companion. Photo: AFP It was then that the father of two, Fabrizio Petrillo, started his new life as the woman Valentina and began hormone therapy. This life included continuing as a parasprinter, but now in the women’s class. Last year this ended with two bronze medals in the WC in Paris in 200 meters and 400 meters. Now the dream is still to win a new medal in 200 meters in the same city in the best of all, the Paralympics. In that case, such a medal will not come without opposition. Because even though Valentina Petrillo’s times have dropped by more than 10 seconds in the 400 meters after she began the process of changing gender, her participation in the women’s class has caused reactions. New round of controversies And with that, new games in Paris are disproportionately characterized by a debate about gender identity and justice, after the two boxers Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting were accused of being biological men when they participated in the women’s class in The Olympics in the French capital a month ago. So not a trans debate, in case anyone is wondering. Imane Khelif had to endure a lot of noise around her during the Olympics earlier this summer, but still won gold in the 66-kilogram class for women. Photo: AP Both boxers won gold in their classes. But throughout the Olympics, the two women had to face a storm of unsubstantiated accusations that they either had XY chromosomes or were cases of DSD, a condition with elevated testosterone levels. To this day, no evidence of the accusations has been made public. The central question of testosterone “This is the start of an inclusive world, with a sport that does not exclude. We all have the right to exist, to live and to be who we feel we are,” continued Valentina Petrillo to news after her Paralympic debut. You don’t need any proof that Petrillo is a woman, because in para-athletics it’s enough to identify yourself as one and also have a testosterone level over 12 months that is below 10 nanomoles per liter of blood. The usual for women is below 2. Many have claimed that this focus on testosterone does not make sense. Because you can never take back all the advantages you have in many sports by going through male puberty, as Valentina Petrillo and other trans athletes have done. Valentina Petrillo flies out of the starting blocks in Paris. Photo: AFP Whether it’s height, size or strength. Including that the heart and lung capacity is also markedly greater. But the research in the area has not yet concluded what benefits this actually provides, when the testosterone level is lowered significantly, and the body’s functions change. And no one believes that you will get a satisfactory answer to this for many years yet. Cowardice and confusion Hence the confusion continues. Both the International Olympic Committee, IOC, and the International Paralympic Committee have chosen an overly pragmatic approach to the problem. Some will just call it cowardly. In any case, they have shifted all responsibility for making rules to the individual sports’ special confederations. It has given the slightly absurd result that there are different rules in athletics and para-athletics. While trans women who have undergone male puberty cannot compete in the Olympics, they can participate in the Paralympics. Which makes Valentina Petrillo call her participation “her greatest victory” even before she had been in action on the pitch at the Stade de France. The Paralympics in Paris do not escape the trans debate. Photo: Reuters Welcome to third grade? And the reactions increased as expected after Petrillo had run. Because while the vast majority support the right of trans people to practice their sport in principle, the opposition to them taking part in the women’s class is bordering on massive. In Norway, in 2022, the Norwegian Sports Council adopted full inclusion in broad sports, but opened up restrictions on the access of trans people to participate in the women’s class within top sports. After Petrillo’s first race, the general secretary of Venezuela’s Paralympic Committee, Johan Marin, called this a “terrible injustice against female athletes” to the BBC. Marin believed that the only fair thing would be to create a third and open class for non-binary people. This has been up for discussion many times – and has been presented as the only fair solution. The only solution to the seemingly insoluble, that is. The only problem is that the solution doesn’t work. Valentina Petrillo is one of the big talking heads during the Paralympics in Paris. Photo: Antonio Calanni / AP The attempts that have been made to offer this, including in swimming, have been completely unsuccessful. For obvious reasons. Trans people and others who could be relevant perceive such a class as even more discriminatory. Which is more than understandable. The right to be who you want is opposed to the right to fair competition. People’s identity stands against the sport’s fundamental uniqueness. Nor will sport’s big ethical tangle be resolved during the Paralympics. Regardless of whether Valentina Petrillo was knocked out in the semi-finals of the 400 metres. But it will continue to receive a disproportionate amount of attention. Then some will also continue to think that this mostly revolves around the fact that it is the female class that is the theme here. If it had been men who were affected by this, a solution would have been found long ago. Published 04/09/2024, at 13.28 Updated 04.09.2024, at 13.35
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The trans debate – the path of greatest resistance. – Paralympics Paris 2024
