Sports should decide transgender policy - IPC head

Petrillo first competed for Italy at the 2021 Para Athletics European Championships

International sport governing bodies should set their own policies on transgender athletes, says International Paralympic Committee president Andrew Parsons.

The 49-year-old, who was born with a visual impairment, was born male but transitioned in 2019.

She won bronze in the T12 400m at the Para Athletics World Championships in Paris on Thursday and set a 200m personal best in Sunday's heats.

Under World Para Athletics' rules, a person who is legally recognised as a woman is eligible to compete in the category their impairment qualifies them for.

Parsons said the IPC is not considering a ruling across all Paralympic sports.

"The definition of who is eligible to compete in a female event or not is up to each international governing body," he told BBC Sport.

• 'Better to be a slow, happy woman than a fast, unhappy man' - Petrillo

In March World Athletics and then UK Athletics (UKA) banned transgender women from competing in female categories at international and national level respectively.

UKA said athletics should "remain an inclusive sport" but it is "fair" that athletes who have gone through male puberty should be excluded from the female category.

Parsons said: "From an IPC perspective, we allowed individual sports to make their rules in terms of transgender. So these rules can be different from sport to sport.

"Some are coming with different positions on transgender, or with the criteria to allow them or not to allow them, so I'm not surprised by the repercussions of it."

Some Para-sports such as cycling and rowing are run by the same governing body as their Olympic counterparts, but many are independent.

Last week the UCI, world cycling's governing body, ruled that transgender women could not compete in female events.

The UCI said anyone who transitioned after male puberty could compete in a 'men/open' category.

There has been criticism of Petrillo's participation in Paris, but Parsons said the IPC was aware the issue of transgender athletes taking part in top-level Para sport would arise at some point.

"We always knew it was not a matter of if; it's a matter of when," he said.

"However, we are monitoring what is happening in the world of sport in general and new research, because this is a reality of sport these days. Science needs to be the guiding principle.

"The transgender population is growing and they are here to stay. We have to make sure we give them sporting opportunities, but also protect female athletes."