Steroid estrogens are a group of biologically active compounds synthesized from cholesterol and have a cyclopentan-o-perhydrophenanthrene ring in common. Steroid estrogens can be classified into natural and synthetic types, and have been intensively reported for wide distribution in water bodies and farmland soils. Trace steroid estrogens in the environment can pose severe threat to the ecosystems. For example, these steroid estrogens can promote synthesis and secretion of vitellogenin in male fish, and this female-specific protein can lead to feminization of the male fish population and result in extinction of fish species. Recently, steroid estrogens have been frequently detected in surface waters, such as lakes and rivers, but little attention was paid to steroid estrogen accumulation in soils, and the potential steroid estrogen pollution caused by application of manure in greenhouse vegetable farmland. In addition to the sewage treatment plant effluent outfalls, large amounts of animal wastes and biosolids applied to agricultural fields might run off into nearby water bodies or infiltrate through the soil into groundwater. Cattle and poultry manure has been reported as a source of the environmental loadings of steroid estrogens. In this paper, the migration and transformation process of steroid estrogens was reviewed, and the environmental behavior including adsorption, degradation and associated influence factors was discussed. The distribution and partitioning of steroid estrogens in the environment were determined by their physicochemical properties and site-specific environmental conditions. Due to low solubility in water, the persistence and bioavailability of hydrophobic steroid hormones in the aquatic systems depend greatly on their sorption to particulate matter. The adsorption behavior of steroid estrogens in environmental media is influenced not only by their physical and chemical properties, but also by soil type, environmental pH, and types and contents of organic matters. Furthermore, degradation of steroid hormones in the environment includes photodegradation, chemical degradation, and microbial degradation, and the degradation process can greatly reduce the concentration of steroid estrogens, but is affected by multiple factors. Finally, the research trends of steroid estrogens were suggested as follows: 1) to explore the pattern of environmental behaviors of manure- borne- steroid estrogens in the farmland soil, especially in the greenhouse soil; 2) to investigate research in the field, especially under multi- interface conditions, which make more sense than experimental simulations in the lab; 3) to discover the environmental behaviors of steroid estrogens coexisting with other pollutants.