The speech by Jo Bartosch that brought a standing ovation: “We need to stop hiding, to stop deflecting and boldly tell the unvarnished truth – that it is impossible to change sex.”

Jo Bartosch’s speech on “The Way Forward” was warmly received at the LGB Alliance Conference last Thursday. This is a transcript of her speech.

I want to talk about pride and about shame.

I have never been what is crudely referred to as a ‘flag-shagger’; I’ve never sat through the Queen’s speech at Christmas and I can’t name a single English football player. But one thing that does make me genuinely proud to be British is that we are now known across the world as TERF-island. And that’s important because the UK punches above its weight in terms of cultural exports; what we are doing here is being watched by the rest of the world.

And what we are doing is standing firm against an ideology imported wholesale from the US. An ideology that has the backing of some of the world’s most powerful people; I’m not talking about elected politicians and peers who make law in that building over there, I’m talking about the technocrats – those in Silicon Valley with the power to shape minds.

But one thing that does make me genuinely proud to be British is that we are now known across the world as TERF-island.

Social media has become a vector for body dysmorphia, and pornography has made the prospect of growing up female a sentence to sexual subservience. Many young people now believe that their bodies can be changed like gaming avatar.

Today, lesbians only exist online as fodder for male fantasies – it’s no wonder so many girls want to opt out of womanhood. Men who use porn are increasingly becoming dead to the touch of another human, preferring to consume fantasies through a screen.

For a significant minority of men there are entire genres of sissy porn and forced feminisation that are feeding their fetishistic delusion that they can change sex. And for these men, typically middle-aged straight men who call themselves transgender, ‘woman’ never involves scrubbing skid marks out the loo – it means being a sex object.

The technological revolution has not just changed how we think, it has moved the locus of power. A quarter of a century ago, John Perry Barlow argued “weary governments of flesh and steel” had no place online in what he described as “the new home of Mind.”

Until the most powerful political figures in the land can say ‘only women have a cervix’ without fear of reprisals, the time for political purity is past. 

In the years since profit-driven social media companies have colonised space online, unelected beardy woke bros have programmed the parameters of what is deemed acceptable speech according to their own agenda. The rise of transgenderism – both as it manifests in confused young people and the midlife crises of men, is just one facet of this shift towards online living.

And this new form of power demands a new form of resistance – we need to think differently. Not that many years ago I would never have imagined that I would be the one walking past protesters to speak – I would’ve been one of those holding a placard. That’s been a shock, because being a progressive left-winger was part of my identity. But the mob protesting here today, those attempting to intimidate and silence people whose views they fundamentally misunderstand, have the support of everyone from President Biden and Mark Zuckerberg to Russell T Davies.

Until the most powerful political figures in the land can say ‘only women have a cervix’ without fear of reprisals, the time for political purity is past. The threat to our humanity from transgenderism transcends the divisions of left and right; the divide is between those who acknowledge reality and those promote a dangerous lie. So, wherever we stand politically or socially, it must be side-by-side.

In a way, this should not be a difficult fight – not least because sustaining a lie takes more effort than upholding the truth. The anger we face is because our detractors know their position is indefensible. We should take heart from the fact that the vast majority of those as yet uninfected by this social media-born virus instinctively know that sex matters. Like it or lump it, everyone’s mum knows where babies come from – Mother Nature is a TERF!

Lesbian feminist philosopher Mary Daly came up with the idea of patriarchal reversals; she saw them everywhere but the obvious example, is the idea that Eve a woman came from Adam, a man. And the shift in ‘shame’ is a perfect example of a patriarchal reversal. We need not be ‘ashamed’ of knowing that sex is real any more than we are of being lesbian, gay or bisexual. We don’t need so-called transwomen to voice our entirely legitimate opinions for us in case we’re thought ‘unkind’. We don’t need to demonstrate that we are ‘good people’ before expressing our views to appease some moron who thinks biology is a colonial concept. It’s baffling to me that we are so defensive.

We have allowed ourselves to be forced back into a shame-filled closet by the ignorance and insouciance of the wider world. Once there was a subtle way for sussing out if someone was same-sex attracted; a hyper awareness of little gestures and give-aways. Today a similar system has developed for those who know that sex is real and that it can’t be changed. Some have the colours of the suffragettes or dinosaurs on their social media profiles whereas others refuse to play the pronoun game – just as in years gone by, we cautiously dance around each other before we ‘come out’ with our dangerous heretical belief that sex matters.

The threat to our humanity from transgenderism transcends the divisions of left and right; the divide is between those who acknowledge reality and those promote a dangerous lie. So, wherever we stand politically or socially, it must be side-by-side.

We need to stop hiding, to stop deflecting and boldly tell the unvarnished truth – that it is impossible to change sex. Those who should be ashamed are the pervert straight men who call themselves ‘lesbian’. They’re the surgeons who are right now removing the heathy breasts of teenage girls. They’re the likes of Stonewall CEO Nancy Kelley, who is currently whining that the multi-million pound protection racket she runs is being unfairly targeted because journalists at the BBC are finally doing their job. They’re the public figures like LGBT envoy Lord Herbert – it’s his job to engage with this debate, to listen, to show some leadership – and yet, I can’t see him in this room. Lord Herbert, if you see this, if you ever watch this, I would like to tell you that through your silence you have allowed yourself to become complicit in what will go down in history as the biggest medical scandal of a generation.

We need to remember the shame is not ours. We do not need to apologise for being lesbian, gay or bisexual or for knowing what that means. In a way we’ve been here before, and just as in the past, all we have to lose is shame. The way forward is to come out and to stand together with pride.

Jo Bartosch is our reporter for Lesbian and Gay News, and she also writes for Spiked, The Critic and many national newspapers.