J.K. Rowling Causes Storm By Calling Transgender Paralympian Valentina Petrillo a “Cheater,” Defending Women’s Sports

You would think that being named in a literal cyberbullying lawsuit would maybe deter J.K. Rowling from tweeting for longer than a couple of weeks.

And yet, the Harry Potter author has proved once again that she has a terminal case of poster’s disease by targeting 51-year-old visually impaired transgender Paralympian Valentina Petrillo.

Petrillo made history Monday night at the Paralympic Games in Paris as the first out trans women to compete in a Paralympics track event. (On Monday, the BBC reported that Dutch trans athlete Ingrid van Kranen had competed in the women’s discus final at the Rio 2016 games, though her story was not widely known at the time.)

The Italian sprinter finished third in the second semifinal for the women’s 400m in the T12 division, designated for runners competing with a visual impairment. Though she did not qualify for the final, Petrillo told The Guardian afterward that she has “to be happy even if I’m a little down.”

“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. ”(That effort paid off because Petrillo did, in fact, achieve her personal best in the race, according to the Associated Press, with a finish time of 57.58 seconds.)

But even though Petrillo did not advance in the competition, Rowling still felt the need to weigh in on her supposedly “unfair” participation, alongside other anti-trans social media commentators. On Monday, Rowling posted to X sarcastically questioning “all the anger about the inspirational Petrillo.”

“The cheat community has never had this kind of visibility!” she wrote. “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.”

Armstrong, an internationally renowned cyclist, admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs in 2013, and was subsequently stripped of all his Tour de France titles and an Olympic bronze medal.

It should go without saying that comparing Petrillo, a 51-year-old trans woman, to Armstrong is a laughably false equivalence. Setting aside the fact that Petrillo did not impact anyone’s place on the podium, studies have found that trans elite athletes may actually face some athletic disadvantages compared to cis women. And we also have to point out that this is Rowling, one of the wealthiest authors of all time, punching down at a Paralympic athlete.