Valentina Petrillo, the transgender Paralympian who competed against women at the Paris Paralympics, has hit back at criticism she received from J.K. Rowling for taking part in the event.
Petrillo's qualification to compete in the women's event at the Paris Paralympics sparked backlash in the weeks leading up to the games. Petrillo competed in the T12 400m sprint. The Italian runner was diagnosed with a progressive eye disease called Stargardt disease as a teenager and began her male-to-female gender transition in 2019.
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Valentina Petrillo of Italy competes in the women's 400m semi-finals at the Stade de France during the Paris Summer Paralympics. (Adam Davey/PA Images via Getty Images)
The “Harry Potter” author wrote in X magazine last week that Mr. Petrillo was cheating. Mr. Petrillo fired back in an interview with The Times of London.
“J.K. Rowling only cares about me using the ladies' toilet, but she knows nothing about me,” Petrillo told the outlet.
Petrillo blamed the criticism on a world rooted in “bigotry and transphobia.”
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Athlete Valentina Petrillo prepares to compete at the Stade de France stadium during the Paris Paralympic Games, Monday, September 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Jackson Ranger)
World Athletics last year banned transgender athletes who had a sex change after puberty from competing in women's events, but World Para Athletics still allows transgender athletes to participate as long as they declare their gender identity as female for sporting purposes and provide evidence that their testosterone levels were below 10 nanomoles per litre of blood for at least 12 months before their first competition.
“Since 2015, when the IOC lifted the ban on transgender participation in the Olympics, only one person has competed – Laurel Hubbard,” Petrillo added, “and I'm the only[openly transgender person]to compete in the Paralympics, so the fear that transgender people are going to ruin the[women's sports]world doesn't really exist.”
“People were saying that (a lot of) men would compete as women just to win, but that's not happening at all. This is just transphobia.”
After the interview was published, Rowling fired back at Petrillo.
J.K. Rowling arrives at the Guinness Six Nations match at Scottish Gas Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh on February 24, 2024. (Andrew Milligan/PA Images via Getty Images)
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“No, it's not. It's not the only concern I and millions of other women who are concerned about the erosion of feminine categories, boundaries and rights,” she wrote to X.
Fox News' Paulina Deday contributed to this report.
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