There’s nothing ‘inspiring’ about men competing against women

The world learnt last week that the Paralympic Games will be welcoming its first-ever openly transgender athlete – and he is planning to compete in women’s events.

Runner Valentina Petrillo is a 50-year-old biological male. His inclusion in the 200m and 400m women’s sprints for visually impaired athletes has prompted an understandable uproar.

Petrillo has been unfazed by the backlash so far, however. Speaking to Spanish sports news site Relevo this week, he announced how excited he is to take part in the Paris Paralympics. He even boasted about what ‘an inspiring role model’ he thinks he is, both to the LGBT community and to his sport more broadly. He also predicted that the crowds will be ‘enthusiastic’ about his inclusion and that ‘there will be a lot more love for me than I can imagine’.

This may be wishful thinking on Petrillo’s part. Certainly, there is little enthusiasm to be found among his fellow athletes. Visually impaired German sprinter Katrin Mueller-Rottgardt told the Bild newspaper this week that she is worried about competing against Petrillo because of the biological ‘advantage’ he has. He ‘has lived and trained as a man for a long time’, she said, ‘so there is a possibility that his physical condition is different to someone who was born a woman’.

Mueller-Rottgardt is right to air these concerns. Petrillo only started receiving hormone therapy in 2019. He has gone through male puberty and has lived most of his life as a man. This will have conferred extraordinary, unfair advantages in terms of strength, power and speed.

Irene Aguiar, a Spanish lawyer who specialises in international sports law, has slammed Petrillo’s selection in the women’s events as ‘unfair’. Aguiar points out that Spanish sprinter Melani Berges lost her chance to compete in Paris because of Petrillo, when she finished just behind him in a Paralympics qualifying race.

None of this seems to bother Petrillo in the slightest. He has blamed the backlash from female athletes on ‘envy and jealousy’. ‘It’s only fair that each of us can express ourselves in our own gender’, he told Relevo. ‘Sport should teach us the value of inclusion and this is fundamental for people’s happiness.’

Here we see the narcissism of gender ideology laid bare. To the trans activist, what matters most is that men are given the opportunity to ‘express’ their ‘gender’ on the world stage. That they can feel ‘included’ in categories that are intended for women. Actual women and our sports are mere collateral damage in this.

We need to kick this pernicious ideology out of the Paralympics. And all other sports competitions.

Lauren Smith is a staff writer at spiked.