JK Rowling brands transgender Paralympic athlete an ‘out and proud cheat’

JK Rowling condemned Valentina Petrillo’s presence at the Paralympic Games after the transgender sprinter qualified for the semi-finals of the visually impaired 400m. On Monday, the British author described the athlete, who’s competing as a T12 woman – a classification given to track athletes with visual impairments – as a “proud cheat.”
After being selected to represent Italy at the Paralympics in Paris, Petrillo became the first openly transgender athlete to partake in the international sports competition. Taking to social media, Rowling shared a photo of the 51-year-old alongside the caption: “Why all the anger about the inspirational Petrillo? The cheat community has never had this kind of visibility!
“Out and proud cheats like Petrillo prove the era of cheat-shaming is over. What a role model! I say we give Lance Armstrong his medals back and move on.”
In response to one critic who accused her of attempting to spread negative stereotypes about trans people, Rowling replied: “I know all trans people aren’t cheats. However, knowing you have an unfair advantage and exploiting it anyway is pretty much the textbook definition of cheating.”
When one X user argued that Valentina is competing at the Paralympics as a woman “on her own merit,” Rowling commented: “Being a man is an advantage in sports that require speed and strength. We both know you know that, but you’ve chosen to pretend you don’t.” She later added, “I am the daughter of a mother with a disability. This is not an abstract talking point to me, it’s a red line.”
This isn’t the first time that Rowling has voiced her disapproval of certain athletes competing in Paris. Last month, she took aim at Imane Khelif after the Algerian boxer secured a 46-second win over Italy’s Angela Carini at the Olympics. One year prior, the 25-year-old was disqualified from the 2023 Women’s World Championships after failing a gender eligibility test.
“Could any picture sum up our new men’s rights movement better?” Rowling wrote alongside an image of Carini fighting back tears as Khelif tried to comfort her. “The smirk of a male who’s knows he’s protected by a misogynist sporting establishment enjoying the distress of a woman he’s just punched in the head, and whose life’s ambition he’s just shattered.”
While competing as a male in the T12 classification from 2015 to 2018, Petrillo amassed 11 national titles. With the support of her wife, she started to live as a woman in 2018, eventually beginning hormone therapy in January of the following year.
After failing to qualify for the T12 400m final at Stade de France on Monday, Petrillo conceded that her opponents were “stronger,” but expressed hope that her son will still be proud of her Paralympic debut.
”I tried my best until the end, I didn’t make it, I missed the last straight,” Petrillo said. “I pushed more than I did this morning and I tried my best. They are stronger than me, I had to go down too much, to do a 56 [­seconds]. With 57.50, I have to be happy even if I’m a little down.
“I’m a little down, but I hope my son will be proud of me. This is important to me because he has a trans dad, not the dad that everyone dreams of. But I hope he will be proud of me.”