Gender: A Wider Lens — international podcast on gender and transition
Since 2021, Irish psychotherapist Stella O'Malley and American counselor Sasha Ayad have documented the international reassessment of adolescent gender medicine in their podcast Gender: A Wider Lens. The show — over 200 episodes long, typically around one hour — interviews researchers, clinicians, journalists, parents and detransitioners. Genspect calls it "the world's leading podcast on gender".
The hosts
Stella O'Malley is a psychotherapist in Ireland and author of What Your Teenager Is Trying to Tell You (2022) and When in Doubt, Don't Pull It Out. She founded 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 at her practice Inspired Teen Therapy.
What the podcast investigates
The episodes systematically document the patterns that remain underreported in mainstream media: the demographic shift toward adolescent girls, the comorbidity with autism and ADHD, the policy reversals in Finland and the UK, the detransition cases coming forward, and the first malpractice cases against affirmative gender doctors. Neither activist nor affirmative — clinically inquisitive.
Key episodes
52 — Lisa Littman
3 December 2021
The physician-researcher who defined rapid-onset gender dysphoria (2018) and published the first large detransitioner study (2021).
62 — Riittakerttu Kaltiala
11 February 2022
Finnish professor of adolescent psychiatry on how her clinic stepped away from the affirmative course — a neighbouring precedent for the Netherlands.
64 + 193 — Az Hakeem
25 February 2022 + 15 November 2024
British psychiatrist, two decades of clinical experience with gender dysphoria, 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, double mastectomy at 14. A landmark American medical-malpractice case against affirmative gender medicine.
Why the international view matters
Dutch gender medicine relies on the two Amsterdam studies of 2011 and 2014. Finland (Kaltiala, 2020), the UK (Cass Review, 2024) and Sweden (Karolinska, 2021) have concluded, on the basis of their own outcome data, that the claims of the Dutch Protocol are not replicable and that the risks have been structurally underestimated. Gender: A Wider Lens brings that international line to source — in full interview form, with the researchers and clinicians themselves speaking.
Listen
- widerlenspod.com — archive and transcripts
- Apple Podcasts
- Spotify
- YouTube