Stella O'Malley is an Irish psychotherapist, bestselling author, and public speaker who presented the Channel 4 documentary Trans Kids, It's Time to Talk and co-hosts the podcast Gender: A Wider Lens. Drawing from her own childhood experience of consistently declaring herself a boy between the ages of three and ten before naturally coming to terms with her womanliness during puberty, O'Malley began writing publicly about gender identity to provide representation for children with similar pasts. Through her clinical practice and her work as a founding member of the International Association of Therapists for Desisters and Detransitioners, she has become a prominent voice critiquing the rapid medicalisation of gender-distressed youths, advocating instead for thorough, exploratory talk therapy and addressing underlying psychological complexities rather than immediate medical intervention. Furthermore, she cautions against the societal pressures and professional failures that have led to an unprecedented rise in medicalising vulnerable young people who are experiencing general adolescent distress or navigating complex comorbidities, noting that modern medical interventions often fail to resolve underlying psychological pain while inflicting heavy, permanent burdens.
