J.K. Rowling attacks trans Paralympian Valentina Petrillo online

"Why all the anger about the inspirational Petrillo? The cheat community has never had this kind of visibility!" Rowling said in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

"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," Rowling continued about Petrillo.

Rowling's assertion depends on the idea that men are without exception better at all sports than women, and that if they can't beat other men, they will accept living life as a woman in order to beat women at sports.

While Petrillo made it to the semifinals of her event, the women's 400m T12 race, she did not qualify for the finals despite running a personal best time of 57.58 seconds. She finished third in her semifinal.

Again, Petrillo ran the fastest 400m of her life and still did not qualify as one of the fastest women for the final. She will also compete in the 200m later this week.

"From today, I don't want to hear anything more about discrimination, prejudices against transgender people," she said after her race. "There are lots of people dying only for being trans, people are killed because they are trans and lose their jobs, or are not included in sport. But I made it. If I can make it, everyone can make it."

Others, like lesbian tennis legend Martina Navratilova, who often shares far-right talking points about trans people online, also spoke up.

On a post saying that Petrillo "will stop a woman advancing to the finals, and has the ability to stop a woman getting a medal," Navratilova claimed that all "males" have a sporting advantage over all "females."

"This 'inclusive' policy, in the name of being progressive, is actually regressive as the policy excludes women because BIOLOGY!" she shouted on X. "You won't find women who identify as men taking places of Males because BIOLOGY. Males and females are different. Period."

After less than ten seconds of searching, I was able to find multiple trans men "taking places of males" on sports teams.

Chris Mosier famously competed in the duathlon and race walking against men after transitioning. Mosier is an All-American duathlete competing against men for Team USA and in 2020 was on track to make the USA men's Olympic team for race walking before he suffered an injury.

Another notable example is Schulyer Bailar, a trans man who swam for the Harvard men's team in 2015. In his senior year, his 100 yard breaststroke time placed him in the top 10 percent of all male swimmers in all NCAA divisions.

More recently, trans fencer Bobbie Hirsch beat out cis men athletes to earn a spot on Wayne State University's men's fencing team.

How long will it be until TERFS realize that their arguments hold no water? Hopefully sooner rather than later.