A trans-identified male athlete who has been criticized for playing Gaelic football against young women and teen girls has now been granted a sports award and positively profiled by Ireland’s longest-running LGBT publication. Giulia Valentino, formerly Marco Valentino and 39 years old, was praised as a “trailblazer” by Gay Community News in an article announcing that he was a recipient of the 2023 Galas LGBTQ+ Sports Award, which was presented to him in Dublin on October 7.
In an article for their October issue, Gay Community News (GCN) celebrated Valentino’s “bravery and grace” for “continuously standing up for trans women in sport,” despite facing “considerable transphobic hate and lies.” The publication also highlighted his “outstanding advocacy” while working with Transgender Equality Network Ireland (TENI) to ensure that the Ladies Gaelic Football Association implemented a policy allowing men to compete against female athletes on the basis of gender identity.
“Giulia was initially excluded from Irish rugby due to a transphobic IRFU ban, but [his] outstanding advocacy and work with TENI moved the LGFA to create a trans-inclusive policy so that trans women can fully and safely participate in GAA (Na Gaeil Aeracha) and rugby (Emerald Warriors).”
GCN continued, “Upon receiving [his] award, Giulia shared [he] is a proud member of Emerald Warriors, that [he] was honored to be recognized, and thanked everyone for supporting [him] through a ‘tough but incredible year.'”
Valentino first came to widespread media attention after he was found to have been playing against young women and girls last summer in the Ladies Gaelic Football Junior-J Shield tournament.
At the time, Valentino was a member of “inclusive” football club Na Gaeil Aeracha, established in 2020, which had an explicit policy stating that any person playing for the team “may play at training or in a match for the team they best identify with, without restriction.”
Photos from the tournament game began to circulate on social media after sports writer Ewan MacKenna called attention to the results, prompting outcry. One widely-shared photo shows Valentino, then 37 years old, on the field next to a much younger female opponent who appeared to be in her teens.
Reduxx was later contacted by a teammate of the girl in the photo who confirmed she was a minor. Multiple women’s rights activists were rapidly banned from X (formerly Twitter) after objecting to Valentino’s participation against the young female footballers.
A source who had attended the game depicted in the image told The Independent that the referee initially believed Valentino was part of Na Gaeil Aeracha’s back room team until he saw him playing against the female athletes.
After he realized that Valentino was competing in the match, he stopped the game to tell Na Gaeil Aeracha that there was “a problem with your number 21” and told them “the player is a man.”
Acknowledging the backlash, the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) and the Ladies’ Gaelic Football Association (LGFA) released a statement promising to implement a revised policy on transgender athletes. Disturbingly, The Guardian soon revealed that Valentino was working with the LGFA to create their new guidelines, prompting criticism from women’s rights campaigners.
A group which lobbies for the preservation of sex-based rights in law and policy, The Countess, released a statement in response after learning of Valentino’s approved application to continue competing against female athletes. Countess Sports Working Group lead representative, identified only as Sorcha, said in a statement, “Women and girls have a right to fair competition, safety on the field of play, and privacy in the changing areas. We are campaigning to protect all of this.”
A transgender policy statement posted to the LGFA official website in February of this year explicitly permits the participation of boys and men who claim to have a female identity, beginning from the age of 12.
“The Association is committed to the inclusion of Trans-women into the LGFA. The Association intends that those Trans-women who have their LGFA Transgender Application Form approved are supported in doing so in a safe and inclusive environment. The Association reiterates that it will not tolerate any harassment or discrimination within the LGFA,” the policy states. “This Policy applies to all Trans-women, over the age of 12, who seek to play, or continue playing, Ladies Gaelic Football.”
The policy does not include information on whether transgender athletes are invited to share locker rooms with female teammates. However, in 2021, Valentino complained about being asked to use a separate changing room while playing on a Dublin rugby team, and told GCN, “I am quite annoyed by this harsh approach.”
News that Valentino had been presented with a sports award sparked outrage online from many who expressed concern that a man should be rewarded for competing in a contact sport against young women. Some critics highlighted Valentino’s affinity for attending fetish clubs and posting online about his “kinks.”
Across social media platforms, including Facebook, Flickr, and FetLife, Valentino discusses fetishism, refers to himself as a “dyke” and a “slut,” and shares photos of sex toys, as well as images of himself in bondage and fetish gear. He has also been performing at BDSM fetish clubs under the moniker DJ Mav.
Prior to relocating to Dublin in 2019, Valentino was a resident DJ at a BDSM venue called the Ritual and Torture Garden, performing at both of their locations in Rome and London. According to a post on Valentino’s SoundCloud page, he also performed at a bondage festival in Munich. He is currently the resident DJ for a fetish club in Dublin called Nimhneach, which means ‘painful’ or ‘sore’ in Gaelic.
According to his FetLife profile, Valentino is a member of and attends a fetish group called Women in Ireland, which advertises itself as “a place to explore the kinky world in a female-only environment… By ‘women’ or ‘female’ we mean all people who identify as women (cis, trans, non-binary).”
Women in Ireland’s group description warns against men with fetishes for pretending to be women, despite being open to men who self-identify as female.
“We are not about having ‘acting like a woman’ or ‘dressing like a woman’ as a kink, or things like sissification, where being a woman is humiliating because it is somehow ‘less-than’ being a man,” reads the description.
“We’re not the gender police,” it continues. “Men, boys, dude-bros, gentlemen, bears, cavemen, guys, blokes, geezers, chaps etc: We love you dearly, but this group is not for you. We respectfully ask that you not invade this space.”
