Twice has Robin Dahlstedt's body undergone fundamental changes. In his teenage years, it was about what he knew in his head not matching his physical body. Robin became, after the treatments, a man.
The second time, the change came suddenly and unwelcome:
It started with my left foot. It started to hang. And it's clear that it's really tough. But I haven't gotten that dip, sports have saved me from it.
"Like anyone else"
Robin Dahlstedt has spastic paraparesis, a neurological disease where muscles tense and weaken in the legs and feet.
My body is just getting worse and worse. I can't remember what it feels like to walk normally anymore.
Childhood sports have in adulthood become a full-scale commitment to para-ice hockey.
My physio says that "your problem, Robin, is not that you have a disability. Your problem is that you just solve things all the time that maybe aren't always optimal for your body load", he says and continues:
Of course, you can feel that it's crap some day, but then you get so much outlet for everything in sports. If I didn't have sports, I would probably be sitting at home locked in my apartment like many with a disability do. I can live like anyone else.
Hateful debate
That's not what Elon Musk, the world's richest person, thinks Robin Dahlstedt should be allowed to do. Not because of his disability, but because of his gender identity.
During the Olympic Games, a hateful debate erupted around boxers Imane Khelif, Algeria, and Lin Yu-Ting, Taiwan, who both won gold. Men in women's clothes, it was said. Despite both being women, not trans people. Musk was one of many loud voices who thought the boxers shouldn't be allowed to participate.
Robin Dahlstedt followed the debate.
Having to go through that must be absolutely terrifying. When you're actually born a woman and are a woman. But it's societal norms, that a woman should look a certain way.
He himself is nuanced when it comes to the question of trans people's participation in competitions.
Everyone should be able to play sports. At the same time, I understand that you have to get decent rules.
Italian first out
In the Paralympics in Paris, Valentina Petrillo will be the first trans person to participate. The Italian "came out", as she herself puts it, as a woman in 2017. With the help of hormone treatment, she was able to lower her testosterone levels to be in line with international rules for women's para-sports. The 50-year-old will compete in the 200 and 400 meters, in the T12 category for athletes with visual impairments.
Petrillo expects criticism and online harassment of the kind that affected Khelif and Lin.
But I'm here, I've fought for several years to get here, and I'm not afraid. I am who I am, she says to the news agency AFP.
Marcus Alexandersson/TT
Facts: Trans people in sports
The discussion about whether people who were born in one legal gender and changed to another during their lifetime should be allowed to participate in sports has been going on for a long time.
Different federations have made different decisions over the years. For example, the international athletics federation stopped trans people from participating in women's classes as recently as last year.
There is also a ban on trans people participating in women's classes in cycling competitions.
In swimming, a person who was born a man but underwent gender correction before the age of 12 can compete against women.
The International Paralympic Committee allows people who are legally women to participate in the events where they are qualified based on their disability.
Weightlifter Laurel Hubbard from New Zealand became the first trans person to participate in the Olympic Games in Tokyo 2021.
