Everything you need to know about trailblazing trans Paralympian sprinter Valentina Petrillo

The Paralympics are set to begin on Thursday (29 August) and there are a number of LGBTQ+ paralympians who should be on your radar.

One of them is Italian Valentina Petrillo, a trans sprinter who will be going for gold in the T12 200m and 400m.

Petrillo is visually impaired, having lost her sight at the age of 14 after being diagnosed with Stargardt disease, which leads to the degeneration of the retina. She previously told AP that she had dreamed of going to the Olympics since she was seven years old, after watching Italian sprinter Pietro Mennea, who won the 200m gold medal at the Moscow Olympics in 1980.

Her loss of sight made that impossible but instead she will achieve her dream at the Paralympics, where she will become the event’s first trans woman athlete.

World Para Athletics (WPA) allows transgender athletes to compete in the female category at international events even though its counterpart, World Athletics, has banned transgender women from competing if they transitioned after puberty.

WPA told AP that transgender female athletes must provide evidence that their testosterone levels have been below 10 nanomoles per litre of blood for at least 12 months prior to their first competition.

When did Valentina Petrillo come out?

Petrillo came out as trans in 2017 – first to her wife, with whom she shares a son – and started living as a woman in 2018. She began hormone therapy the following year, which affected her both physically and emotionally, she told the BBC.

“I’m not the same as before. Fabrizio no longer exists,” she said.

“I began transitioning in 2019 and in 2020, I realised my dream, which was to race in the female category, to do the sport that I had always loved doing. I got to 50 before it came true… we all have the right to a second choice of life, a second chance,” Petrillo told AP.

“I wanted to do it as a woman because I didn’t feel like a man, I didn’t feel like myself.”

Petrillo added that being trans isn’t “the best” in Italy but considers herself lucky nonetheless.

Has Valentina Petrillo faced any backlash as a trans athlete?

Being trans in athletics hasn’t been easy for Petrillo. She faced a backlash in Spain in 2023 after she local rival Melani Bergés Gámez to seal her qualification for Paris.

Gámez called it an “injustice” but the Spanish Paralympic Committee said they “respect the regulations of WPA”, although it would be “appropriate to move towards uniformity of criteria with the Olympic wold in relation to this matter”.

German sprinter Katrin Mueller-Rottgardt expressed similar concerns to a German tabloid, saying that “everyone should live how they like in every-day life” but that it is different in professional sports.

“[Petrillo] lived and trained for a long time as a man, so there’s a possibility that physical conditions are different than for someone who comes into the world as a woman. She could have advantages from it,” she said.

Just days ago, former tennis great Martina Navratilova called Petrillo a “pathetic cheater”.

What is Valentina Petrillo’s previous sports career?

Petrillo was passionate about running from an early age but thought her dreams had been dashed when she lost her sight.

Aged 20, she moved from her home in Naples to Bologna to study computer science at the Institute for the Blind. While there, she joined Italy’s national five-a-side football team for the visually impaired.

She only started running again at the age of 41, winning 11 national titles in the male sprinting categories for athletes with visual impairment. She’ll be 51 by the time the Paris Paralympics come to a close on 8 September.

The Paralympics will be available to watch on Channel 4 in the UK.

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