The morning of September 2 at Stade de France was the realization of a dream for Italian Paralympic sprinter Valentina Petrillo.
As she entered the stadium along with her heat for the women’s T12 classification (visual impairment) 400 meters, she still had some nervousness. It didn’t come from the competition itself, but from fears that the chance would be taken away because of who she is — a trans woman competing in the female category.
“I was still doubting this even when we got on the plane to go to Paris,” she recently told Outsports. “I was still fearing that something was going to prevent me from running. I didn’t realize that the dream came true, and even now I don’t fully realize it still.”
She ended up reaching the semifinals in both the 200 meters and 400 meters at the Paris Paralympics. Since the Games, her story gained a wider audience, and she’s found a lot of support on her social media and throughout Italy.
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“I wasn’t as well known before, and now I’m recognized by a lot of trans people and people who aren’t trans,” she said. “There is a change in attitude and that feedback has been positive.”
More people know her in part thanks to, among others, best-selling author J.K. Rowling, who has long focused attacks on trans women. During the Paralympics, Rowling referred to Petrillo as a member of the “cheat community” and compared her to actual drug cheat and former pro cyclist Lance Armstrong.
Petrillo responded with some of best shade thrown in sports this year.
“I’m surprised Rowling commented about me,” Petrillo told RAI Sports following her opening 200-meter heat September 6. “I was told she wrote Harry Potter. I haven’t even read it. Plus she writes in her books about a sport that has no gender so I expected a little more from Rowling.”
Petrillo continues to push back against the popular narrative used against her. She also lifts up the example of Cuba’s 11-time Paralympic gold medalist and triple world record holder Omara Durand. She is the (cisgender) sprinter the entire classification has chased for more than a decade.
“I’m still amazed that Rowling is wasting her time calling me a cheat,” she recalled. “Consider the competitor for Cuba, Omara Durand, at 400 meters. She runs 400 meters at 51 seconds. I have never run that time in my entire life.”
Such criticisms, and supposed animus by competitors, were laughed off as well. She noted that even as some outsiders were focused on her own events, other athletes were supportive of her.
One that Petrillo cited in particular was someone she seeking to beat. Iran’s Hajar Safarzadeh Ghahderijani entered the Paralympics having won gold at the 2024 World Para Athletic Championships in May in Durand’s absence.
On paper, a cisgender Iranian woman and a transgender woman from the western world is a confrontation waiting to happen. Petrillo noted that the opposite happened.
“She was really nice,” Petrillo said of Ghahderjani. “We got on well in the call room before and after our races and she made positive declaration to the press. I want to thank her for being so open towards me.”
Valentina Petrillo ‘was reborn four years ago‘
Petrillo’s road to Paris took a lot of twists and turns, starting at age 14 when she was diagnosed with Stargardt disease. The eye disorder that causes retinal degeneration usually starts in childhood and levels off at adulthood, yet it often renders vision at 20/200 or worse.
As she adjusted, Petrillo focused on a career as a computer programmer and on running. As a university student in 1994 she joined a sport club and showed a lot of potential. A coach told her that there was a Paralympics coming up in two years in Atlanta, and that she could be there.
“My trainers told me I could get there, but I didn’t feel fit,” she remembered in a 2020 interview with Outsports. “I wasn’t right in my head. I was feeling my uneasiness because I felt like I was this different person, yet I wasn’t expressing that.”
She didn’t reach the Paralympics in 1996 and the gender dysphoria intensified. By 2016, she had a career, a marriage, a child, a memory from her own childhood of a cousin was a transgender and disowned. The decision looked clear for her, even with her own thoughts from childhood forward.
She was also back on the track. Between 2016 and 2018, she raced to 11 national para athletics championships, but the strain of keeping her transgender secret was becoming too great.
“I used to dress up and hide in the bathroom so to not be discovered,” Petrillo recalled. “I didn’t understand it. I didn’t know whom I could speak with about it. I decided to hold this secret on my own.”
Petrillo came out to her then-wife in 2017 and began to transition in her life and in her sport.
She lobbied her national governing body for para sports — FISPES (Italian Federation for Paralympic and Experimental Sport) — to allow her to compete as a woman per the regulations of World Para Athletics. FISPES refused and told her that she must compete as a man.
The recently released documentary “5 Nanomoli” chronicled her long fight to be recognized, and there was a triumph. She was able to finally compete as a woman at Italy’s national para athletics championships in 2020 and she won.
Yet disappointment came in 2021. Despite rallying to run a qualifying mark after being reclassified, she was denied a place on Italy’s Paralympic team for Tokyo.
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The disappointment and the hope for Paris were her fuel. In 2023, Petrillo compete at the World Para Athletics Championships in Paris and won bronze at 200 and 400 meters.
Her investment in herself was paying off, even as a 50-something athlete. “I was reborn four years ago,” she said of her transition “This run goes beyond age and classification. I had a passion for this sport.”
She also was fueled by her son Lorenzo, age 9. He was in Paris, along with ex-wife Elena, and her daughter Caterina. After a disappointing finish in the 200 semi finals that ended the Paralympics for Petrillo, she headed to her son. They hugged and the struggle’s end poured out in tears.
The image of that moment was caught by a television camera, and passed along in a mini-viral flood of screenshots. “I’ve asked many sacrifices of Lorenzo for this and I cannot give him that time back,” she said. “Him being that was important for me because he could finally understand why I did so much and the result would be.”
“In that moment I was crying,” she remembered fondly. “I was crying for a few more hours after that.”
Valentina Petrillo isn’t ruling out the LA28 Paralympics
Before this interview, Petrillo was on the track. She has an eye towards the World Para Athletic championships next year in Colombia and has an eye on the 2028 Paralympics in Los Angeles, and possibility of competing at age 55 at the time of the opening ceremonies.
“I was not totally satisfied with how I ran in Paris,” Petrillo noted. “I think I haven’t reached my physical limit. I can push for more, especially at 400 meters, so I’m not ruling out anything for the future.”
Her other goal centers on being a voice for trans rights. She spoke at Pride House during the Paralympics and since she consistently spoken out on matters beyond sports in a number of interviews since.
When asked what she would want to say to Italy’s anti-LGBTQ Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni she stated, “I want to tell her that transgender people are not scary people and I’d ask her to stop being violent toward us. We just want to exist and live happy lives.”
Her main message now is what she feels in the most important takeaway from her own journey. It was another thought she had as she took her marks that first morning as a Paralympian.
“As took the start I thought of all the things in my life that I gave up for this achievement,” she said. “I also was aware that this journey, the process I went through, would be important for other people like me.”
