politics
Masha Gessen Wins 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Opinion Writing
The New York Times writer received the award on Monday for a collection of essays, most of which critique President Donald Trump. Gessen, who identifies as nonbinary and uses the pronoun Gessen or X on official documents, has a long history of writing on authoritarianism, gender issues and personal identity.
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Masha Gessen of The New York Times won the 2026 Pulitzer Prize in opinion writing on Monday, May 6, 2026, for a collection of essays, most of which critique President Donald Trump. The award was given for work that the Pulitzer committee described in its test of excellence as demonstrating clarity, moral purpose, sound logic, engaging prose and power to influence public opinion.
Gessen has argued in favor of gender-affirming care for minors and excoriated the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v.
Skrmetti. D. medication, receive hormonal treatment for short stature and participate in competitive sports — that can have similar long-term effects.
These are choices that individuals make, usually with their parents and often with their doctors. We all live with the consequences of trade-offs we made as teenagers. Gessen began publicly identifying as nonbinary in 2020.
That same year, the writer posted on social media that even better I’d totally use Gessen as my pronoun all the time and thinks avoiding pronouns is a great solution. U.S. passport indicates her gender as X. In a Pulitzer-winning essay, Gessen recalled an encounter at the airport in which a border security officer asked, What is your gender?
It’s X, I answered. What does that mean? It means it’s X. Can you elaborate?
No. Is there an issue? The officers conferred for a minute and sent Gessen on the way. Gessen wrote that this is exactly who I am: a person who doesn’t identify as either male or female. Gessen also questioned why border officers needed to know gender at all, noting that the passport photo and age matched.
