Steroid estrogens (SEs) are widespread in the environment as endocrine disrupting chemicals. After entering the body of an organism, SEs simulate the action of endogenous hormones or modulate their activity, which adversely affects the growth, development, and reproduction of the organism; thus, SEs have gained increasing attention recently. Currently, most studies on SEs focus on their detection and environmental behavior, as well as on the transport and transformation of SEs in aquatic organisms. However, some studies have reported on the transport and accumulation of SEs in soil-plant systems, which is more important to understand the potential risks of SEs in human health. In this study, the uptake, accumulation, transport, transformation, and metabolism of SEs in soil-plant systems and the factors that influence them have been reviewed based on the current related researches. The uptake of SEs by plants exhibits a dose-dependent effect. After being absorbed by plant roots, SEs can further migrate to the aboveground parts, but due to their strong hydrophobicity, they will tend to accumulate in the roots. The transformation and metabolism of SEs may mainly result from catalytic degradation of plant enzymes and/or symbiotic microorganisms by plants. Unlike a relatively simple medium in hydroponic experiments, soil-plant-microbial systems are more complex, and SEs may exhibit a series of multiphase distribution and transformation behaviors, which are determined by the combination of properties of SEs, soils, and plants. In addition, we have summarized the influences of SEs on plant growth, development, and antioxidant activities. Treatment of plants with SEs can affect root and shoot development, which may be related to plant species, culture conditions (e.g. culture time, temperature or humidity) and the treated concentration of target SEs. Moreover, when SEs coexist with heavy metals, they can ameliorate the toxic effects of heavy metals on plants. For better understanding the mechanisms of SEs described above, we have suggested the following research strategies: 1) to investigate the environmental behaviors of SEs in the actual soil-plant systems, especially the transport and transformation processes of SEs among soil-water-plant multiphase systems, which is more relevant than the simulation experiments in laboratory; 2) to examine the pollution risks from different SEs sources and their impacts on the plant uptake and accumulation of contaminants, which usually coexist and interact with SEs; 3) to set a threshold level for uptake of SEs that pose no detrimental effects to human health via enriching the available monitoring data and enhancing risk assessment of SE residues in crops.