Skip to content

Phoebe Maltz Bovy vs. transgender people

Phoebe Maltz Bovy is an American author and podcaster. Bovy has published in anti-trans publication UnHerd and has appeared as a guest on the anti-trans “drama” podcast Blocked and Reported. Bovy and Kat Rosenfield host the Feminine Chaos podcast. Bovy was signatory to the 2020 Harper’s Letter signed by dozens of anti-trans activists.

Bovy generally writes nuanced and measured responses to controversies involving “trans stuff” but usually seems more sympathetic to cisgender points of view.

Background

Phoebe Maltz Bovy was born on July 31, 1983. Bovy earned a bachelor’s degree from University of Chicago in 2005 and a doctorate from New York University in 2013. From 2015 to 2019 Bovy taught French couses at University of Toronto.

Bovy has been a freelance writer and blogger since 2006, including The New Republic, Partisan, The Atlantic, and The New Inquiry. In 2014 Bovy interned for anti-trans extremist Andrew Sullivan at The Dish. In 2016 to 2017 Bovy edited the Sisterhood blog at The Forward. Since 2022 Bovy has been opinion editor at Canadian Jewish News. 

Anti-trans bias

When Bovy opines on trans issues, differing viewpoints are summarized in ways that subtly express more sympathy for the anti-trans viewpoint. In a piece on anti-trans extremist Kathleen Stock and The Lesbian Project, Bovy writes:

The Lesbian Project is defined by the group it does serve, namely cisgender lesbians. This is, paradoxically, why it’s worth the attention even of women for whom a lesbian separatist movement would hold no appeal.

Women – of any sexual orientation – often do not feel entitled to assert boundaries in their romantic lives. We’re expected to be amenable, and not just where gender or anatomy is concerned. Straight women could stand to do more boundary-assertion. There’s no obligation to give men we’re not attracted to a chance, or to do in the bedroom whatever a man suggests. Women should feel empowered to have only the sex they want to be having, with the consenting partners they want to have it with.

In a review of Victoria Smith’s book Hags, Bovy summarizes Smith’s clear anti-trans bias:

The real audience Hags stands to alienate will be those who have correctly assessed which team Smith is on when it comes to the only feminist issue anyone seems to care about these days: trans stuff. She’s with J.K. Rowling and not Owen Jones.

[…]

But the “Terf” label is as much about age as actual ideology, and “Terfdom” can serve as a pretext to label older women generally irrelevant yet potentially dangerous to listen to. Smith is onto something when she mentions the refrain, which I’ve also seen circulating, about how trans women look more like women than “Terfs” do. This is meant as a pro-trans rallying cry, equating beauty with goodness, and implying that gender-critical feminists are all sitting around wishing they looked like Barbie dolls, as though their non-resemblance to them were not intentional. What it winds up doing is defining true womanhood, cis or trans, as, to use Smith’s phrase, “femininity-fertility-fuckability”.

It would be more fair to note that anti-trans “feminists” also frequently attack trans people on their gender expression and appearance. TERF’s often highlight trans women and women with differences of sex development who do not “pass” as targets of their ire, especially athletes, unattractive or polarizing social media figures, and those accused of crimes. Responses like the random joke tweet Bovy cites are merely pointing out this hypocrisy.

References

Smith, Blake (November 18, 2024). The Ethics of Self-Interpretation. Tablet https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/ethics-of-self-interpretation

Selected anti-trans writings by Bovy

Bovy, Phoebe Maltz (February 20, 2023). There’s nothing wrong when women establish boundaries. The Globe and Mail https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-theres-nothing-wrong-when-women-establish-boundaries/

Bovy, Phoebe Maltz (September 6, 2023). Parental consent for a gender transition is unwise. So is keeping a child’s gender a state secret. The Globe and Mail https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-parental-consent-for-a-gender-transition-is-unwise-so-is-keeping-a/

Bovy, Phoebe Maltz (February 20, 2023). Hag feminism is the future: Women past a certain age are turned into antagonists. UnHerd https://unherd.com/2023/02/hag-feminism-is-the-future/

Bovy, Phoebe Maltz (February 26, 2023). Not like the other girls. But what if that’s true? Close-reading the reruns https://phoebemaltzbovy.substack.com/p/not-like-the-other-girls

Bovy, Phoebe Maltz (February 14, 2023). The only topic. Close-reading the reruns https://phoebemaltzbovy.substack.com/p/the-only-topic

Bovy, Phoebe Maltz (June 29, 2023). The term ‘cisgender’ is more fraught than its advocates admit. The Globe and Mail https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-term-cisgender-is-more-fraught-than-its-advocates-admit/

Bovy, Phoebe Maltz (April 12, 2016). Should Feminism Be About Political Solidarity? On the intersection of feminism and gender fluidity. The New Republic https://newrepublic.com/article/132606/feminism-political-solidarity

Bovy, Phoebe Maltz (2017). The Perils of “Privilege”: Why Injustice Can’t Be Solved by Accusing Others of Advantage. St. Martin’s Publishing Group, ISBN 9781250091222

Resources

Phoebe Maltz Bovy (phoebemaltzbovy.weebly.com)

What Would Phoebe Do (whatwouldphoebedo.blogspot.com)

X/Twitter (x.com)

Substack (substack.com)

Medium (medium.com)

LinkedIn (linkedin.com)