Gender: A Wider Lens — international podcast about gender and transition
Since December 2020, Irish psychotherapist Stella O'Malley and American counselor Sasha Ayad have been documenting the international reassessment of adolescent gender care in their podcast Gender: A Wider Lens. The programme — more than 200 episodes long and usually around an hour in length — features interviews with researchers, clinicians, journalists, parents and detransitioners. Genspect calls it "the world's leading podcast on gender".
More on this site: Gender: A Wider Lens (podcast).
The hosts
Stella O'Malley is a psychotherapist in Ireland, author of, among other works, Fragile (2019) and What Your Teen Is Trying to Tell You (2023), and founder of Genspect — the international umbrella organisation of clinicians, researchers and parents who question the affirmative model. Sasha Ayad is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Texas, specialising in adolescents. She treats young people with gender distress in her practice, Inspired Teen Therapy. O'Malley has her own profile on this site: Stella O'Malley. genspect.nl also has a page about the podcast.
What the podcast investigates
The episodes systematically document patterns that remain unaddressed in mainstream media: the demographic shift towards adolescent girls, the comorbidity of autism and ADHD, international policy shifts in Finland and the UK, the detransition cases coming forward, and the first legal proceedings against affirmative gender clinicians. Not an activist podcast, not an affirmative podcast — a clinically investigative podcast.
Key episodes
52 — Lisa Littman
3 December 2021
The physician-researcher who defined rapid-onset gender dysphoria (2018) and published the first major detransition study (2021).
62 — Riittakerttu Kaltiala
11 February 2022
Finnish professor of adolescent psychiatry on how her clinic moved away from the affirmative approach — a precedent in a neighbouring country for the Netherlands.
64 + 193 — Az Hakeem
25 February 2022 + 15 November 2024
British psychiatrist with twenty years of clinical experience in gender dysphoria, and author of TRANS and DETRANS.
66 — Steensma & De Vries
11 March 2022
The Dutch researchers behind the Dutch Protocol — a rare English-language account of their original studies.
106 — Detransition Awareness
17 March 2023
The clinical definition of detransition and the launch of BeyondTrans.org, Genspect's platform for detransitioners.
204 — Clementine Breen
7 February 2025
Puberty blockers at 12, a mastectomy at 14. An American indictment of affirmative gender care.
Why an international perspective matters
The Dutch gender-care field relies on the two Amsterdam studies from 2011 and 2014. In Finland (Kaltiala, 2020), the UK (Cass Review, 2024) and Sweden (Karolinska, 2021), their own evaluations of the evidence have established that the basis of the Dutch Protocol is weak. Gender: A Wider Lens presents that international perspective at the source — in full interview format, with the researchers and clinicians themselves having their say.
Listen
- widerlenspod.com — archive and transcripts
- Apple Podcasts
- Spotify
- YouTube
Read also
MeMoMa publishes essays and analyses from a sex-realist feminist perspective that rejects self-identification as a legal criterion and defends women’s rights.
Generazione D is an Italian association founded by parents that criticizes gender-affirming care for minors and follows international reviews.
EGGÖ (Europäische Gesellschaft für Geschlechtergerechtigkeit Österreich) is an Austrian association critical of self-identification and gender-affirming care.