Valentina Petrillo, a transgender Paralympian who competed towards girls on the Paralympic Video games in Paris, fired again at criticism levied from J.Okay. Rowling for taking part within the occasion.
Petrillo’s eligibility on the ladies’s aspect of the Paralympics in Paris triggered backlash within the weeks main as much as the Video games. Petrillo competed within the T12 400-meter dash. The Italian runner was identified with a degenerative eye situation referred to as Stargardt illness as a youngster and started transitioning from male to feminine in 2019.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COM
Italy’s Valentina Petrillo throughout the girls’s 400-meter semi-final on the Stade de France on the Paris Summer time Paralympic Video games. (Adam Davy/PA Photos through Getty Photos)
The “Harry Potter” writer wrote on X final week that Petrillo was dishonest. Petrillo fired again in an interview with The Occasions of London.
“JK Rowling is barely involved about the truth that I exploit the feminine bathroom, however she doesn’t know something about me,” Petrillo advised the outlet.
Petrillo blamed the criticism on a world allegedly rooted in “prejudice and transphobia.”
AUSTRALIAN B-GIRL SAYS SHE EXPECTED TO ‘GET BEATEN’ AT PARIS OLYMPICS IN FIRST INTERVIEW SINCE CONTROVERSY
Valentina Petrillo prepares to compete on the Stade de France Stadium, throughout the Paris Paralympics, Monday, Sept. 2, 2024. (AP Photograph/Jackson Ranger)
Whereas World Athletics banned trans athletes from competing in girls’s occasions in the event that they transitioned after puberty final yr, World Para Athletics nonetheless permits transgender athletes to take part so long as they declare that their gender id for sporting functions is feminine and supply proof that their testosterone ranges have been under 10 nanomoles per liter of blood for a minimum of 12 months previous to their first competitors.
“Since 2015, when the IOC opened the Olympics to transgender individuals, there has solely been one one that competed, Laurel Hubbard,” Petrillo added. “And there has solely been one [openly transgender] person who has participated on the Paralympics, me. So all of this worry that trans individuals will destroy the world [of women’s sport] really doesn’t exist.
“Individuals stated [lots of] males would go to compete as girls simply so they may win, however that has not occurred in any respect. It’s simply transphobia.”
Rowling fired again at Petrillo after the interview was printed.
J. Okay. Rowling arrives for the Guinness Six Nations match on the Scottish Gasoline Murrayfield Stadium, Edinburgh, on Feb. 24, 2024. (Andrew Milligan/PA Photos through Getty Photos)
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
“Yeah, no. That is not the one factor I, or any of the opposite thousands and thousands of girls involved concerning the destruction of feminine classes, boundaries and rights, are involved about,” she wrote on X.
Fox Information’ Paulina Dedaj contributed to this report.
Comply with Fox Information Digital’s sports coverage on X and subscribe to the Fox Information Sports activities Huddle publication.
