Valentina Petrillo shouldn't be allowed to compete in the women's race

Cheating male enabled by the IOC nobheads.

I agree that universal sex testing for entry into female sports categories is the only way forward.

But I think though that there would be now very few athletes who would not know they were male and have gone through male puberty. I understand your point. But which female athletes would not have gone to the doctor when they didn’t start periods. Or they started to notice their voice dropping. Combined with not developing breasts. I know young female athletes who had delayed puberty due to their athletic training schedule, they do get checked and there is some indicator of female puberty. It is not completely lacking.

In this modern world, I suspect there are very few, if any who do not know or suspect they are male. Particularly, if they live in regions where there are clusters of these DSDs so it is not an unknown medical issue.

Cheaty McCheatface. What an arsehole.

I’ve read a couple of articles about this guy this morning and I have to say, he sounds like an absolute brat. He does not feel he has an advantage or that it’s unfair to any of the other female athletes?? He genuinely thinks that his right to compete as a female trumps other female athlete’s right to fair competition. Thing is, nobody is saying he can’t compete - he can always compete in the male category, but he won’t do that will he? It’s obvious why.
Ive even read that he has compared his critics to Hitler. What an entitled prick! How dare he compare his ‘plight’ with that of persecuted Jewish people. How dare he whinge about not being let in to change with the other women. This guy, in my opinion, is much worse than IK.

Hell I agree if they know. But they don't always know and many of the counties where this seems more prevelant don't have the same healthcare systems.
Boxing - as an example - has decided weight categories and allow people to fight in their weight.

I just think we have no actual proof of some people being called names online who believe they are woman and have been raised as one.

I think the sports bodies need to bring in universal testing for example - rather than people getting to decide based on how someone looks to them they are male DSD.

Im not suggesting it's easy. But I wouldn't want to be raised a woman and then called a man based on someone's assumption of my looks.
And biologically it's not as simple with DSDs as it is with trans athletes who were born a sex and had puberty of that sex.

There's no denying more needs to be done though.

Technically no, according to the current rules. But don’t your eyebrows raise a bit at the mindset of a middle aged man who, having already achieved some athletic success in the past when racing as a man , cottoned on to the fact that if he says he is a woman he could race as a woman and win?( Sadly now age has caught up with him, and even with his male pubertal advantages still largely in place, he can’t win against younger fitter women.)

So why should women be forced to be unwilling walk on actors in his personal fantasies? Why should female athletes who also want to win as much as he does be pushed out of national team selections, qualifying races, semi final races, and potentially finals, medal ceremonies, record books etc to accommodate his sad little dreams.

That is where the real cheating starts , with the women who he has deliberately and cynically cheated out of the opportunity to fulfil their dreams and ambitions, to call themselves Paralympians,to run in a stadium in front of the biggest audience they have ever seen, be uplifted and deafened by the cheers, and to know that whatever the outcome of the day, they have run their best in a fair race against their contemporaries. That’s what he has cheated them out of. That’s why he is a cheat. .

Thank you :) I'll read up

Oh stripy. I am not educating you. I am merely presenting other arguments. I do understand where you are coming from, because I, and I am sure many others have been in that position.

You can only just read and read and read and make up your own mind after seeing different points of view. If you are interested, here is a place to start.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5142027-save-female-sports-evidence-thread?page=1

To put those male people who have DSDs which enable their bodies to develope male pubertal advantage into perspective.

What other category exists where an athlete that believed they fit into the category regulations but then were tested and it was proven that they did not fit into those category guidelines any more would still be allowed to compete in that category?

And are those who argue that male people with DSDs where their body has gone through any part of male puberty, arguing that those male people deserve special consideration?

Thank you @Helleofabore, very interesting/worrying. I'll read up. Thanks for taking your time to educate me.

Except, if they know they are male and have been assessed to have gone through male puberty. And they have access and know that male puberty gives them advantages over the female people in the sport.

If they know all that, why do you think it is different?

It's his coaching team and sport association's fault if he is publicly vilified

But a man with a male DSD isn't female. Just because he had poor care as a child doesn't mean he gets to punch women as compensation. Or deny them sporting opportunities.
It's not complicated

DSDs are different.

It's not fair to tell a female who was told they were female at birth, have female on their birth certificate and were raised female they aren't female.

There are questions to be asked and answered around sport and competing. But a female who has gone into sport believing they are female and having no idea they have a DSD shouldn't be called a cheat and publicly vilified.

of course not

once again male entitlement trumps what is fair and females are ignored

All have won! All shall have prizes!

(Oh well except for some of those annoying women who 'don't try hard enough')

Haha! I’d forgotten about that. Even better!

Yanbu, of course he shouldn't be competing in the women's race.

No, no, you forget @KTheGrey . It's not an amazing sense of entitlement, it's 'Stunning and Brave' .

I believe you describe the Caucus Race from Alice in Wonderland.

Also saying "I am a trans dad". Dads are men. Talk about having your cake and eating it. He has the advantage of male puberty, the experience of fatherhood and of competing as a man, and now he wants to compete as a woman at an age when a woman's running career would be over. That is an amazing degree of entitlement.

Exactly. He's a cheat. The fact that this is facilitated by the rules doesn't make him less of a cheat. He knows the rules are unfair as well as anyone.

Why don’t we just get rid of all the categories, and the competitive elements, of sport? People could enter a ballot from which one person is chosen per country, at random. Those people then run around a track. They can run any distance. No one notes their times. At some point the crowd just starts clapping, which signals the end of the event. Now that would be inclusive.

I don’t believe any male athlete is competing in female sports categories without understanding that experts have stated that it is unfair. Even Dr Richard Budgett of the IOC publicly acknowledged it was an unfair policy, but he then stated that the IOC chose inclusion over fairness.

And yet, I can list male people, including Caster Semenya, who also then use their position as champions in female sports categories to tell female athletes that female athletes are just not as good as them, or that female athletes should just ‘try harder’. These male athletes know. They know and they choose to make the regulations work for them to win, to claim prize money and acclaim.

There are male cyclists in the USA who are competing in each different event of the season and getting the prize money every time. There are a group of them and too often they are getting all three podium places. Yet the USA cycling regulators for those events refuse to change the rules. Because those are special male people who declare they are female because they have a transgender identity. Female cyclocross champions are now leaving the sport.

Women in darts now will face ‘disciplinary action’ for forfeitting their game in protest that the international darts body has allowed unfair regulations to stand. And yes, there is plenty of male advantage in darts. It has to do with height, muscle fibres, skeletal proportions and even hip alignment for balance. Grip strength, twitch muscles, height, hip alignment, even lung capacity are all important and do not change with testosterone suppression. This is now well undrerstood.

Yet, the female competitors in darts are now being threatened with disciplinary action.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/darts/article-13808439/Female-darts-players-threatened-disciplinary-action-refusal-play-transgender-opponents-British-star-pulled-two-events-protest.html

The female athletes are having their ability to protest removed. They are being silenced, and the male athletes know why and they defiantly keep entering the events.

Because they can! That is part of the attraction. They can transgress the boundaries of female athletes,
and society in general.

So, I understand being uncomfortable with the focus on the individual athletes. But these discussions have been highly public now for several years. The athletes involved should not be considered ignorant that they have these advantages. Even if their coaches have told them to ignore the ‘hate’, they know by now.

They know and part of the attraction of competing is knowing they are transgressing the boundaries of female athletes in doing so.

That is a feature of the movement supporting this decision. It is about transgressing societal boundaries for their own person benefit.

Nah, he's a cheat. I agree with you that the fundamental issue is the rules, but nobody is making him do this.

One of the definitions Oxford Languages provides of cheating is acting unfairly. This man competing in a women's category is unfair. He's a cheat.