Jo Bartosch Journalist and Transphobe – Opinion
Jo Bartosch describes herself as a journalist and feminist campaigner. She has written numerous articles for Spiked Online, Hot Air, and occasionally for more prestigious titles. She is also the “Memo Editor” at Sex Matters, a trans-hostile “human rights” organisation.
Self-identifying herself as a “terf” in her Spiked article published on 19th September 2024, with the headline “The new Fourth Plinth is a monument to trans narcissism” – Bartosch rants about an artwork in London’s Trafalgar Square, highlighting the global discrimination and marginalisation of the trans community, which in the UK is around 0.5% of the population, similar in size to the Jewish community.
But there is another side to Jo Bartosch – one that is seemingly more unpleasant, that of her venomous online attacks against trans women, earning her the reputation of a transphobe – possibly in the hate-filled gender-critical world a badge of honour.
I’ve been unfortunate enough to be attacked online several times by Jo Bartosch, but none worse than two days ago on 12th December.
Quote tweeting a video I had made concerning the ban on puberty blockers Bartosch posted:
“TL:DR this transvestite is furious that vulnerable kids will no longer be sterilised”.
TLDR is an abbreviation for “too long; didn’t read.” It’s a type of text slang sometimes used in online articles and social media posts – “this transvestite” referred to me, and indeed, I have all the screenshots.
Her post begs three questions:
1: Am I a transvestite?
2: Am I furious that vulnerable kids will no longer be sterilised?
3: Do puberty blockers sterilise kids?
So the first question is, what is a transvestite?
Put simply, transvestite is an outdated and profoundly offensive slur for someone who dresses in the opposite sex. It is equivalent to racists using the “N” or “P” word. The fact is, Jo Bartosch posted a lie, as my legal sex is that of a woman, and I dress in a typically female way – I am not a transvestite.
I am indeed a post-op trans woman, having lower surgery on 2nd July 2019. Still, with a gender-recognition certificate (GRC) and a birth certificate stating “girl” – legally, Jo is barking up the wrong tree.
Jo Bartosch will immediately scream (as all gender-critical people do) that a GRC is “legal fiction“ (I am pretty old at this game and know all their words), but as the law stands, I am female, and there is nothing she can do about that.
Strike one Jo Bartosch!
Am I furious that vulnerable kids will no longer be sterilised?
Obviously, this is a ridiculous statement – no one wants to sterilise kids. Whatever side you are on in the gender war, neither side wants to hurt children. One camp takes the view that teenagers (invariably female at birth) are sucked into being transgender – the other camp takes the view that gender-affirming healthcare save lives. A toxic debate, it certainly is – but, no one seeks to harm children on purpose; it’s precisely the opposite.
Strike two Jo Bartosch!
So the final question is: Do puberty blockers sterilise kids? And the simple answer is they don’t – never, ever, ever.
Again, what Jo Bartosch has posted is a blatant lie.
It is true that if puberty blockers are used in conjunction with cross-sex hormones, in later life, they could potentially limit fertility, but the content of my video was nothing about transition; it purely centred on Wes Streeting’s announcement that private healthcare providers would not be able to prescribe puberty blockers to gender-questioning adolescents.
Puberty blockers are used as a way to halt puberty temporarily, in precisely the same way as used for cisgender kids with precious puberty (yet for some inexplicable reason, that use is considered perfectly safe) – giving the user further time to explore their gender identity and if they want to medically transition or not. And just to be clear, the trans community don’t mind if people are trans, gay, straight or whatever; we just wish them a happy life.
So that’s strike three… (and Jo Bartosch is out).
It is precisely because of people like Jo Bartosch that there is so much toxicity in the gender war – not that Jo Bartosch is likely to care; creating malicious animosity earns bucks for journalists like her. Indeed, Jo revels in being “an expert“ and earning money from the gender war with her pinned thread on X (formerly Twitter) reading;
I’m often sneeringly accused by all sides of being ‘obsessed‘ with the rise of trans. And it’s true that for the past few years I’ve not been commissioned to write on much besides. Consequently, I’m now one of a handful of journalists to become expert in the issue. But rather than dismissing me as single-issue perhaps consider the fact that there are so many stories to cover – I am never short of work. Each day across the world dangerous laws are being passed to centre identities- new threats to women & children continuously emerge. This global assault is not just on our bodies, on even on democracy, but on reality itself. That demands expert coverage. And unlike many of those who cover this from the same POV as lobby groups, I am aware of my own beliefs & can argue for them. I am proud of my job.
Sorry, Jo Bartosch, but I don’t think you are an expert – after all, you posted one fuck*** sentence and got three things wrong! Honestly, that is pretty damn hard, even for a self-identifying terf – can someone let the Guinness Book of Records know? It could be Jo Bartosch has set a record for the most number of untruths in just a dozen words.
Perhaps, in the future, commissioning editors may drop Jo Bartosch and employ a 72-year-old trans woman blogger instead?
I mean… we don’t want newspaper articles to tell lies, do we? Or do we?
Smugly,
Steph xx
Jo Bartosch Journalist and Transphobe – Opinion
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