Valentina Petrillo is poised to make history as the first openly transgender athlete to participate in the Paralympic Games.
Italian sprinter Valentina Petrillo, 50, has been chosen to compete in the 2024 Paris Paralympics in the T12 200m and 400m events.
The athlete was diagnosed with Stargardt’s syndrome at the age of 14.
Stargardt’s syndrome is described as “an eye disease that causes vision loss in children and young adults. It is an inherited disease, meaning it is passed on to children from their parents,” according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology.
The Academy further explains: “Stargardt disease is often called juvenile macular dystrophy. In people with Stargardt disease, special light-sensing cells in the macula, called photoreceptors, die off. Central, or detailed, vision becomes blurry or has dark areas. It may also be difficult to see colors well.”
According to The Guardian, Petrillo’s visual range is one fiftieth of what the standard range is.
In 2023, World Athletics imposed a ban on any transgender woman from competing in world ranking competitions if they had undergone puberty, although they added that this decision was “not saying no forever” as more research is being conducted into guidelines for transgender eligibility, BBC reported.
However, World Para Athletics does not have such a restriction. Its regulations state that any athlete who is legally recognized as a woman can compete.
Petrillo revealed to the BBC that she knew she was a woman from the age of nine and began living as a woman in 2018, starting hormone therapy in 2019.
Before her medical transition, she competed in the male T12 category for athletes with visual impairment between 2015 and 2018, securing 11 national titles.
Last year, Petrillo competed at the World Para Athletics Championships in the women’s category, earning two bronze medals.
During an interview in Paris last week, Andrew Parsons of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) responded to the news of Petrillo being selected to represent Italy.
He stated: “For the moment World Para Athletics rules allow her to compete, so she will be welcome as any other athlete. [Petrillo] will be welcome as any other athlete. I think it is just fair that we treat [transgender athletes] respectfully.”
Petrillo has also spoken about her selection for the upcoming Paralympics.
She told BBC Sport that she has “been waiting for this day for three years” and has “done everything possible to earn it.”
Petrillo expressed gratitude to the Italian Paralympic Federation and the Italian Paralympic Committee for “having always believed in [her].”
“Above all as a person as well as an athlete,” she added. “The historic value of being the first transgender woman to compete at the Paralympics is an important symbol of inclusion. This is not a lifestyle choice for me, this is who I am.
“And the way I am, like all transgender people who do not feel they belong to their biological gender, should not be discriminated against in the same way that race, religion or political ideology should not be discriminated against.
“And sport that imposes rules based on a binary way of thinking does not factor this in. It is sport that has to find a solution and excluding transgender athletes is clearly not that solution.”
Petrillo concluded: “Ultimately, in the seven years in which transgender athletes have been able to compete in the female category, the number of instances in which they have stood out for their sporting results have been very few and far between.”