Quillette’s Top Essays on Transgender Trends

Since 2017, Quillette has published essays, interviews, and investigative reports examining the gender identity debate—from rapid-onset gender dysphoria and the rise in adolescent transition, to fairness in female sport, autogynephilia, and the evidence base for gender-affirming care.

The articles below bring together some of our most widely read and enduring contributions, featuring clinicians, evolutionary psychologists, journalists, and researchers.

Together, they offer a data-driven, evidence-focused exploration of one of the most consequential cultural and medical debates of our time.

Transgender Identity

In this seminal 2017 essay, psychotherapist Lisa Marchiano describes a surge of teenage girls suddenly identifying as transgender. She argues that this “rapid-onset gender dysphoria” reflects a social contagion amplified by peers, the internet, and affirmation-only clinics. Marchiano warns that rushed medical transitions risk harming vulnerable adolescents and calls for greater therapeutic caution.

In 2023, Quillette published a data-driven essay by evolutionary psychologist David C. Geary arguing that the sharp rise in transgender identification—especially among adolescent girls—reflects powerful social-contagion dynamics amplified by peer networks and social media.

Understanding the Rise of Transgender Identities

The social dynamics of girls’ and women’s friendship groups, including a desire to fit in and avoid conflict, may make them more susceptible to social contagion.

Fairness in Female Sport

In 2024, Quillette’s Jonathan Kay presented a Massachusetts case study in which one athlete’s participation in girls’ teams, across a range of sports, led to multiple injuries and forfeited games.

College Volleyball’s Spartan Meltdown

In a scathing Title IX Complaint obtained by Quillette, a San José State University women’s volleyball coach explains how her school’s aggressively enforced transgender-inclusion policy created a toxic environment for female athletes.

Again in 2024, Quillette’s Jonathan Kay reported on a season-long controversy at San José State University, where a biologically male player on the women’s volleyball team sparked opponent forfeits, internal rifts, and a 33-page Title IX complaint from the program’s associate head coach.

The Damage Caused by Trans ‘Inclusion’ In Female Athletics: a Massachusetts Case Study

A single biologically male high-school student has invaded female categories in at least four different sports—negatively affecting hundreds of girls and women in the process.

The Sex Binary

Activists often cite ‘trans animals’ as proof that sex and gender exist on a continuum. In this 2024 essay, evolutionary biologist, Emma Hilton, and Jonathan Kay examine 18 animal species to show that, across nature, there are always just two biological sexes.

No, There Are No “Trans” Animals

An examination of 18 supposedly ‘trans animals’ disproves activist claims that we all live on a non-binary gender ‘spectrum.’

Can scientific data really support the idea of a ‘sex spectrum’? In this 2023 essay, Zachary A. Elliott disabuses modern misconceptions of gender identity and reminds readers that biology has always drawn a clear line between male and female.

Male or Female: There’s Nothing In Between

Since the dawn of our species, the evolution of two distinct sexes has been fundamental to human reproduction. There is no such thing as a ‘sex spectrum.’

Gender-Affirming Care

In this 2025 essay, Northwestern University psychologists Forest Romm and Kevin Waldman argue that the United States v. Skrmetti Supreme Court decision marks a turning point for American medicine and psychology, forcing a reckoning with the weak evidence base behind “gender-affirming” treatments for minors.

The Rise and Fall of ‘Gender-Affirming’ Therapeutic Care

Thanks to the US Supreme Court, America’s helping professions—including medicine, education, and psychology—may finally adopt an evidence-based approach to treating trans-identified children.

This 2020 Quillette editorial examines the landmark Keira Bell v. Tavistock ruling, in which a UK court found that minors cannot consent to experimental puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. Using Bell’s experience as a cautionary case, the article argues that her lawsuit forced long-overdue scrutiny of “gender-affirming” treatment for children, exposing medical, ethical, and journalistic failures that have silenced debate over risks, regret, and social contagion in adolescent gender dysphoria.

Like It Or Not, Keira Bell Has Opened Up a Real Conversation About Gender Dysphoria

In the debate about transitioning children who experience gender dysphoria, Ms. Bell’s case represents an important turning point.

Below, this essay critiques the Canadian Paediatric Society’s position on gender-affirming care for young people, arguing that the 2023 affirmation-based policy relies on outdated guidelines and overlooks key evidence. Drawing on the Cass Review — a major independent UK report that found the scientific basis for puberty blockers and hormone therapies in minors to be weak, our piece asserts that Canada’s approach inadequately assesses risks, fails to engage with detransition and mental-health literature, and places insufficient emphasis on comprehensive evaluation and informed consent.

Canada’s Paediatric Gender Medicine Must Follow Evidence

While other jurisdictions adopt balanced, evidence-based protocols for treating gender dysphoria, the CPS has doubled down on an obsolete policy instructing doctors to reflexively ‘affirm’ trans-identified youth.

Autogynephilia

In our 2021 essay, Helen Joyce explains autogynephilia—male sexual arousal at the idea of oneself as a woman—tracing Ray Blanchard’s research, Anne Lawrence’s first-person accounts, and Michael Bailey’s popularisation of the theory. She shows how this framework clarifies different pathways to male transsexuality and why the topic became taboo amid activist backlash.

The Truth About Autogynephilia | Helen Joyce | Quillette

Sexual tastes you do not share are inevitably hard to comprehend. But autogynephilia is especially so, since it is rare and even more rarely spoken of.

In 2019, Louise Perry conducted an interview with sexologist Ray Blanchard outlining his transsexualism typology—distinguishing androphilic trans women from those motivated by autogynephilia (arousal at the idea of oneself as a woman)—and explaining why the concept remains clinically useful yet politically radioactive. He discusses prevalence, treatment considerations, and how activist pushback has shifted transgenderism from a clinical question to a cultural battleground.

Autogynephilia Explained: Dr Ray Blanchard Interview | Quillette

Modern trans activists reframed transsexualism/transgenderism as a political problem rather than a clinical problem.