In his 1793 treatise Om kvinnokönets naturliga höghet he advocated gender equality.

He was born in Svarteborg, Sweden and died at Greifswald, which was then Swedish Pomerania, and is now part of the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

Thorild was a supporter of the Sturm und Drang movement and considered an opponent of French-inspired classicism.

He was an important member of the cultural elite in Stockholm during the Gustavian era.

He was popular among women because of his beauty and because of his ideas of gender equality; he aroused much attention with his idea, that just as a man was seen as a person first, and as a man (a gender and sexual object) second, a woman, who was seen as a gender and sexual object first and as a person second, should have the right to be seen upon the same way: "Just as foolish as it is to regard a woman only in the capacity of a SHE, it would be to regard a man only in the capacity of a HE".