Josh Barro vs. transgender people

Josh Barro is an American writer, podcaster, and anti-transgender activist. Barro worked for the Manhattan Institute. Barro co-hosts the podcast Central Air with Megan McArdle and Ben Dreyfuss.

Background

Joshua A. “Josh” Barro born July 17, 1984 and grew up in Massachusetts. Barro received a bachelor’s degree from Harvard, where Barro’s parent, economist Robert Barro, worked.

Josh Barro worked as a commercial real estate banker for Wells Fargo. Barro wrote a column for The Ticker, a blog by Bloomberg. Barro hosted the radio program Left, Right, & Center at KCRW in Los Angeles. Barro was a senior editor and columnist at Business Insider. In 2014, Barro left Business Insider to join “The Upshot” at The New York Times.

In 2018, Barro joined New York Magazine as a business columnist for its Intelligencer site. In 2020, Barro rejoined Business Insider as a columnist covering politics, business, and the economy.

In 2017, Barro married former Democratic National Committee official Zachary Allen.

Anti-trans activism

Barro is an opponent of Democratic party support of trans athletes participating in sex-segregated competitive sport. Using Lia Thomas as an example, Barro wrote:

“Most institutions in our society aren’t segregated by sex or gender, and when they are, we need to ask why. And the reasons for sex segregation in sports are closely related to biology.

Males and females are different, physically, and males are systematically stronger. Segregation by sex makes it possible to have athletic divisions where females can compete and win. If you stop segregating by sex and instead segregate by gender identity, you undermine a core social purpose for which single-sex sports were created. So of course male participation in women’s sports is widely seen as unfair, in spite of the arguments from left-wing writers that sports have never been fair and nobody should care about this.”

Barro has criticized Democratic support for the policy of providing trans healthcare to prisoners, particularly detained immigrants, writing:

“Our nominee’s 2019 declaration to the ACLU that she would have the government pay for transgender surgeries for prisoners and people held in immigration detention became a major attack line against her in this campaign, I think because it highlights several problems with the Democratic Party’s image all at once: here is the Democratic nominee, bowing to pressure from The Groups to look for ways to spend your tax dollars on the most bespoke concern of a criminal, or of a non-citizen who isn’t even supposed to be here, before thinking about you and your interests.”

Barro has been critical of GLAAD. writing:

“The way GLAAD and the other alphabet orgs have handled this issue has been so dishonest, and, for the last couple of years, very transparently dishonest — “the science is settled” was laughably false — which is why they weren’t able to bully the NYT out of doing journalism.”

Podcasts

In early 2022, Barro departed Business Insider and stepped down from Left, Right & Center to focus on independent media, launching the Substack newsletter and podcast Very Serious and co-hosting other shows including the legal affairs podcast Serious Trouble.

In October 2025, Barro launched the podcast Central Air with Megan McArdle and Ben Dreyfuss.

Jerusalem Desmas
Ross Douthat
Liam Kerr
Steve Morris
Nate Silver
Peter Suderman
Matthew Yglesias

References

Rude, Mey (March 25, 2021). Cis Men Like Jesse Singal, Dan Savage Don’t Decide What’s Transphobic. The Advocate https://www.advocate.com/commentary/2021/3/24/cis-men-jesse-singal-dan-savage-dont-decide-whats-transphobic

Press release (September 18, 2018). New York Magazine to Launch Expanded Intelligencer Site. New York magazine https://nymag.com/press/2018/09/new-york-magazine-to-launch-expanded-intelligencer-site.html

Flood, Brian (October 17, 2016). Josh Barro Leaves GOP for Democratic Party: ‘F–k It, I’m Out.’ TheWrap http://www.thewrap.com/josh-barro-leaves-gop-for-democratic-party-f-k-it-im-out/

Klein, Ezra (May 24, 2013). Josh Barro didn’t leave conservatism. Conservatism left Josh Barro. Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/05/24/josh-barro-didnt-leave-conservatism-conservatism-left-josh-barro/

Anti-trans coverage

Sullivan, Andrew (June 5, 2013). Ask Josh Barro Anything: The Recent Evolution Of Conservatism. The Dish http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/06/05/ask-josh-barro-anything-the-recent-evolution-of-conservatism/

Selected writing by Barro

Barro, Josh (September 10, 2025). More Democrats Need To Say It: ‘Sports Leagues Should Be Organized By Sex.’ Very Serious https://www.joshbarro.com/p/more-democrats-need-to-say-it-sports

Barro, Josh (February 20, 2025). Democrats Need Their Own DEI Purge. Very Serious https://www.joshbarro.com/p/democrats-need-their-own-dei-purge

Barro, Josh (January 14, 2025). Meta Is Right to Fire the Fact-Checkers. Very Serious https://www.joshbarro.com/p/meta-is-right-to-fire-the-fact-checkers

Barro, Josh (November 8, 2024). Democrats deserved to lose. The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/11/election-2024-liberal-loss/680591/

Barro, Josh (November 7, 2024). Trump Didn’t Deserve to Win, But We Deserved to Lose. Very Serious https://www.joshbarro.com/p/trump-didnt-deserve-to-win-but-we

Barro, Josh (November 1, 2023). Identity Politics Meets College Politics With Predictably Stupid, Immoral Results. Very Serious https://www.joshbarro.com/p/identity-politics-meets-college-politics

Barro, Josh (October 16, 2016). Why I left the Republican Party to become a Democrat. Business Insider http://www.businessinsider.com/why-i-left-republican-party-register-democrat-2016-10