August 15, 2024 - 1:00pm
What options are there for professional male runners who have passed the finish line of their natural careers? Men who want to pass on their love of the sport might offer coaching to upcoming athletes, or simply cheer them from the stands. But those who want to stay on track and continue to scoop up prizes can always opt to transition into the female team.
This appears to be the strategy taken by 50-year-old Paralympian Valentina Petrillo. The partially sighted father of two won 11 national titles in the men’s category before identifying as a woman in 2019. He has now been selected to represent Italy in the T12 classification for athletes with visual impairments and will be competing in the 200m and 400m in Paris.
The woman whose rightful place he took is Melani Bergés Gámez of Spain. She finished eight-hundredths of a second behind Petrillo at the World Championships last month. As a 34-year-old woman, she is unlikely to have another opportunity to compete at Paralympic level. Notably, the winners who took to the podium on that day alongside Petrillo were aged 26 and 32.
Despite the obvious advantages male biology confers, sporting officials within the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) have backed Petrillo’s participation in the women’s category. IPC president Andrew Parsons, told BBC Sport that the runner is “welcome” in Paris under current World Para Athletics rules, adding that he wants to see the sporting world “unite” on its transgender policies.
But not everyone feels so warm and fuzzy about the inclusion of men in elite women’s sport. In addition to criticism from high-profile commentators and former athletes, a coalition of 40 feminist groups wrote to complain about Petrillo’s switch from the male category. “This is a clear example of how women themselves are prevented from winning in their categories or aspiring to a sporting career as a consequence of transgender politics that put identity issues before the material reality on which sporting competitions are based,” the coalition’s letter claimed.
Separately, in 2021, when Petrillo was almost selected for the Tokyo Paralympics over 30 female athletes signed a petition demanding that he not be allowed to compete in women’s races. Despite this, Petrillo remained unfazed, stating: “I don’t feel like I’m stealing anything from anyone.”
When he was refused access to the female changing rooms in Ancona, the athlete lashed out at detractors as “being on the same level as Hitler”. Such ballsy nonchalance is indicative of what feminists might call male entitlement. Arguably, it is evidence that to those who are used to privilege, fairness can seem like discrimination.
Petrillo is also keen to let the world know how weak he has become since beginning to identify as a woman. “My metabolism has changed,” he told the BBC. “I’m not the energetic person I was. In the first months of transition I put on 10kg. I can’t eat the way I did before, I became anaemic, my haemoglobin is low, I’m always cold, I don’t have the same physical strength, my sleep isn’t what it was, I have mood swings.”
Whether Petrillo really believes mood swings and being cold make him female is irrelevant. Identification into a reductive stereotype of womanhood does not negate the biological advantages of having gone through male puberty. It is unconscionable that officials within the IPC have not had the integrity or courage to remind Petrillo of this basic biological fact.
If Usain Bolt identified as blind and attempted to enter the Paralympic team there would be outrage. He would rightly be recognised as making a mockery of the dedication and talent of visually impaired athletes. But it seems women’s sports are considered fair game. If sporting bodies continue to put the feelings of middle-aged males before elite women athletes, and indeed fairness, female competition will risk becoming nothing more than a retirement plan for unscrupulous men.
Josephine Bartosch is assistant editor at The Critic and co-author of the forthcoming book Pornocracy.
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SubscribeWhat is the point? They will do what they want and any female competitor who objects will be denounced and ostracised for “spreading hate”, frequently by other women, and certainly by powerful men.
That’s the short term, but I sense the tide changing. I think the point is to keep letting them know the tide isn’t ebbing but growing in force and that they’re going to look worse and worse.
This isn’t an exact comparison, but there is overlap: athletes have been stripped of medals, sometimes long after winning them, due to changed attitudes about doping. Ben Johnson, Lance Armstrong, etc.
Now, they were hiding the doping, whereas these athletes are proudly admitting being changed — but what they essentially hide (via denial, exploiting transgender politics) are biological advantages just the same. It’s as if Armstrong and Johnson had said, “Sure I’m using steroids, but I don’t feel like I’m stealing anything from anyone. And by the way, you’re on the level of Hitler if you deny my fantasy.”
So there are two overlaps: hiding/denying the truth of biological advantages, and the changing visibility and attitude toward the unfairness this confers. In the case of doping, eventually that led to significant actual change toward fairness. And that shift is definitely happening faster in the case of trans-women athletes competing in women’s events.
It will be interesting to see if male athletes who steal opportunities from female athletes will eventually be stripped of their medals like Armstrong et al, or will remain in the records maybe with an asterisk by their names, indicating a qualified win, or… nothing.
I hope the opportunities these males seized will eventually be stripped from them and re-awarded to deserving female competitors. Maybe people with the moral sense of Petrillo will have to experience the receiving end of “I don’t feel like I’m stealing anything from anyone.”
Perhaps, but I have lost count of the number of nadirs we have already gone through.
I would have thought more of the Italians after their female boxer took a pasting of that Algerian chappie.
“he wants to see the sporting world “unite” on its transgender policies”
To translate from wokespeak: do as we say or we’ll make you an outcast.
An excellent article and a good reply. The only way to combat wokespeak is to speak truth to power. And loudly. And often.These chappies need to be given an unequivocal message. Stay out of womens’ business, toilets, spaces and sport in particular.
When can we declare victory in the war on women that I am told is being waged?
The more of these obviously and ridiculously unfair examples the world sees the better for hastening the demise of this dreadful ideology. My only hope is that as more people wake up to how they were hoodwinked by this particular woke ideology, they also wake up to how horrendous all the woke ideologies (oppressor vs oppressed and cancel anyone who does not condemn the oppressor and stand up for the oppressed) are.
If Usain Bolt was blind I don’t think there would be anyone clamouring for him to be barred from the paralympics. In fact it would significantly raise the profile of the paralympic games (I’ve not watched a minute and have no intention to). Maybe I am a bit of a stick-in-the-mud but it doesn’t matter what someone “identifies” as but what they are. Both trans and anti-trans are talking past eachother because they don’t believe the other side’s reasoning is valid. This sort of near-sighted article does the author’s cause no favours and won’t persuade anyone who hasn’t already been persuaded. I’m in the middle on this question (both sides would hate me) but calling the runner “he” throughout rather than at least trying to map out a third way smacks of spitefulness as does the “all men are entitled” schtick.
Unless the new blinded Bolt wanted to take part in the women’s races…
Come to that, he doesn’t have to get blind either, I am sure he can go back to the regular Olympics, and add a few more distances to what he has already done since “she” is doing it.
I’m intrigued to know how many female to male transitioners are taking part in sporting competition. I’m expecting there won’t be many, but am quite open to any evidence to disabuse me of that impression.
Wow! His list of ailments since “becoming “ a woman sounds just like me. He sounds like a menopausal woman. However, he failed to add the hot flashes. He must have accidentally left it off of his “how to be a woman” note cards.
We have become too tolerant of narcissists and others with personality disorders. Although I have some expertise in matters medical, psychological, paediatric and young people’s health I have ceased argument on the finer points of this transgender nonsense. I refuse to countenance it as an issue, just as I refuse to discuss the rich freezing their brains for reincarnation down the track. When asked my opinion I just say it is a nonsense and when pressed further e.g “why do you think it is a nonsense?” I say because it is a nonsense. The sooner chappies like this Italian with a bizarre sense of his own worth are just ignored and forbidden from entering women’s sport, the sooner the problem will go away.
There needs to some truths stated to these delusional men. There is no point in trying to reason with them. It would be a great start if the mainstream media stopped referring to these narcissists as she, they, they, them, or whatever these cheats wish to be called. It’s disgraceful that the ‘big issue’ of the day is ‘fake news’, while all types of media outlets are complicit in just that. Any news agency not calling him a man has no credibility.
Just goes to show ‘guys’ that good old fashioned ‘common sense’ ain’t all that common these days, now stop revolving grandad!
Most men who do this have a fetish: They are sexually aroused by pretending to be women. And they hate anyone who doesn’t indulge their fantasies.
Now, what they do in private is not my concern. But why should I have to go along with their little narcissistic tantrum, on a global platform, when it manifestly hurts others?
As a male, I am losing faith in women’s interest or ability or propensity to stick up for their gender. If they don’t care, why should I? They just don’t seem to know who or what they are anymore. I’ve grown tired of the trans sport discussion.
The author of the article is female so… some women clearly do care.
Which stone have you been hiding under for the past 2 decades? Women have been writing, demonstrating, meeting, boycotting, lobbying etc. for years. It’s very telling that you haven’t even noticed all those female voices. Presumably Hans, you don’t have daughters or granddaughters as you obviously don’t give a damn about their opportunities to enjoy sport without males like “Lia” Thomas leering at them while they change. Lucky you, to have “grown tired” because the issue doesnt affect you; no, it only involves 50% of the population. Btw have you never heard of Martina Navratilova?
The paralympics are a huge bonfire of public money squandered on PC virtue signalling; I don’t car if the people competing in that shit have a p***s or not, I just want this circus to cost zero public money.
So far, no good.
Where is the ethics of doubling the disability of these ladies?
I have given up on international sport, the domain of woke globalists.
Stay local and get a better fight on your own turf.
What exactly is this person’s disability, in order to be included in this event?