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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 to physician and academic Charles Maltz (1943–2023) and psychologist Ellen Hymowitz (born 1952). Bovy earned a bachelor’s degree from University of Chicago in 2005. While in college, Bovy wrote for The Chicago Criterion and The Chicago Maroon and interned at Dissent Magazine. Bovy then worked as a researcher at UJA-Federation of New York.

Bovy then attended New York University, earning a master’s degree in 2007 and a doctorate in 2013. From 2015 to 2019 Bovy taught French courses at University of Toronto.

Bovy began blogging in college, including at the center-right Chicago Cabal of Style, Cheapness Studies, and What Would Phoebe Do?. Bovy has freelanced since 2006, including at The University of Chicago Magazine, The Jewish Quarterly, Doublethink by America’s Future Foundation, The New Republic, Partisan, The Atlantic, The Signal, 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. Bovy is a contributing columnist for The Globe and Mail and published a Substack called Close-reading the reruns.

Bovy is married to astronomer Jo Bovy. They have two children.

Anti-trans bias

Bovy’s position on sex and sexuality is based on the view that “women who have binary sexual orientations exist, and are too often assumed not to, on account of ‘fluidity.'” This cis/trans and male/female binarism is colored by Bovy’s sympathies for the trans-exclusionary “LGB” movement, exemplified by like-minded allies such as Andrew Sullivan and Katie Herzog, who cling to fading 20th-century sexual identities.

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. TERFs 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 TERF hypocrisy.

Podcast

Since November 2020, Rosenfield and Bovy have hosted the Feminine Chaos podcast as a standalone show. It was previously part of Bloggingheads/Nonzero. Guests have included Katie Herzog, “Katherine Dee,” Iona Italia, Sasha Stone, Nancy Rommelman, Meghan Daum, Jessa Crispin, Leigh Stein, Penny Lane, Alice Gribbin, Christie Smythe, Batya Ungar-Sargon, Christina Emba, Liz Wolfe, Anna Khalid, Robert Wright, Autumn Whitefield-Madrano, Tara Henley, and “C,” a.k.a. Cartoons Hate Her.

References

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

Death Notice (November 8, 2023). Charles Maltz. New York Times https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/nytimes/name/charles-maltz-obituary?id=53540368

Bovy, Phoebe Maltz (May 7, 2024). Notes from a Harper’s Letter nobody. Close-reading the reruns https://phoebemaltzbovy.substack.com/p/notes-from-a-harpers-letter-nobody

Bovy, Phoebe Maltz (December 2, 2022). Greetings from Phoebe Maltz Bovy––a new senior editor at The Canadian Jewish News. https://issuu.com/thecjn/docs/weekly-dec2

Selected writings by Bovy

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/

“if you treat an established, open-at-school gender transition like a state secret, you’re effectively compelling parents to misgender their children for potentially years on end, and more or less asking for a situation where the kid is outed in unpredictable and potentially upsetting circumstances.”

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/

“If some feminists object to “cisgender,” it’s because the term implies that a not-trans woman has effectively signed on to her own oppression in a sexist society, and is content with her lot. “Cisgender,” blithely applied to men and women alike, suggests the existence of a gender-neutral ease with gender roles that would at most only exist among men.”

“Cisgender” is a concept more fraught than those cheering it seem prepared to allow. And not just to transphobes or culture warriors. It ought to be possible to support rights and affirmation for transgender people without making inaccurate assumptions about those who aren’t trans. If an individual does not want to use “cis” in reference to their own ostensibly not-trans self, that seems … fine?

Bovy, Phoebe Maltz (March 17, 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/

If you believe consent matters, then everyone has the right to say no to sex with anyone else. If you proposition someone, get a no, press them on why, and learn it’s because they prefer a slimmer partner, you can’t charge that they’re being fatphobic. There is no such thing as “-phobic” in this realm, because the minute you decide there is, you’ve argued yourself into a corner where consent can be overridden.

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

Bovy, Phoebe Maltz (July 7, 2022). Cisheterodoxy. Close-reading the reruns https://phoebemaltzbovy.substack.com/p/cisheterodoxy

“the problem comes from the gender-neutrality of the term cishet, and the way it’s used to suggest a common experience among cishet men and women where gender and sexuality are concerned. […] Cishet, however, suggests a shared ease, or even just a shared role, that simply isn’t there. Where cis sticks with a description of gender identity, cishet is about gender and sexual desire intertwined, a more complete portrait of how people go through the world, and thus somehow, to me, more troubling.”

Bovy, Phoebe Maltz (May 25, 2017). ‘Transparent’ Creator Jill Soloway Comes Out As Trans And Genderqueer. Forward https://forward.com/life/373052/transparent-creator-jill-soloway-comes-out-as-trans-and-genderqueer/

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

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

Media

Dan Savage (December 19, 2024). Some unfortunate women are just wired to be straight. #dating #relationships #bisexual https://www.youtube.com/shorts/wETVcwQWwyQ

Nonzero (February 15, 2021). Why Are We Still on Twitter? | Aryeh Cohen-Wade & Phoebe Maltz Bovy [Culturally Determined]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIkuj18Cwsc

Feminine Chaos (March 12, 2020). Critiquing “Ugh-Men” Feminism | Kat Rosenfield, Phoebe Maltz Bovy, & Katie Herzog. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4593zo615iE

Debra Mashek / Heterodox Academy (Dec 5, 2019). #74: Phoebe Maltz Bovy, How Useful is Privilege Checking? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=294BYZMsHPU

Nonzero (November 26, 2019). Gender and the Generations | Kat Rosenfield, Phoebe Maltz Bovy, & Meghan Daum [Feminine Chaos] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbOjSkaUN_I

Nonzero (April 30, 2019). The Julia Louis-Dreyfus Affair | Aryeh Cohen-Wade & Phoebe Maltz Bovy [Culturally Determined]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZNXv5XdICA

Nonzero (May 30, 2018). Remembering Philip Roth | Aryeh Cohen-Wade & Phoebe Maltz Bovy [Culturally Determined]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vwgw8GGW3c

Nonzero (Apr 5, 2018). Conor Friedersdorf & Phoebe Maltz Bovy [Friedersdorf]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsV0YBYdLw8

Nonzero (Jun 22, 2017). Aryeh Cohen-Wade & Phoebe Maltz Bovy [Culturally Determined]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZtzNMxa4xc

Resources

Phoebe Maltz Bovy (phoebemaltzbovy.weebly.com)

X/Twitter (x.com)

Substack (substack.com)

New York University (nyu.edu)

  • Phoebe Maltz [archive]
  • homepages.nyu.edu/~pm1179

Macmillan US (us.macmillan.com)

  • Phoebe Maltz Bovy [archive]
  • us.macmillan.com/author/phoebemaltzbovy

Blogspot (blogspot.com)

Facebook (facebook.com)

Medium (medium.com)

LinkedIn (linkedin.com)

Bylines