Susan Jane Bradley (born 1940) is a Canadian

psychiatrist A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry. Psychiatrists are physicians who evaluate patients to determine whether their symptoms are the result of a physical illness, a combination of physical and mental ailments or strictly ...

. She has written many journal articles and books, including ''Gender Identity Disorder and Psychosexual Problems in Children and Adolescents'' (with Kenneth Zucker) and ''Affect Regulation and the Development of Psychopathology.'' Bradley was chair of the ''

DSM-IV The ''Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders'' (''DSM''; latest edition: ''DSM-5-TR'', published in March 2022) is a publication by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) for the classification of mental disorders using a com ...

'' Subcommittee on Gender Disorders.Bradley SJ, Blanchard R, Coates SW, Green R, Levine SB, Meyer-Bahlburg HFL, Pauly IB, Zucker KJ (1991). Interim report of the DSM-IV Subcommittee on Gender Identity Disorders. ''

Archives of Sexual Behavior The ''Archives of Sexual Behavior'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed medical journal in sexology. It is the official publication of the International Academy of Sex Research. History The journal was established in 1971 by Richard Green, who served a ...

'' Volume 20, Number 4 / August, 1991 Bradley served as Head of the Division of Child Psychiatry and was Psychiatrist-in-Chief at the Hospital for Sick Children and was consultant psychiatrist at the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry. She is a Professor Emerita in the Department of Psychiatry at

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

and a fellow of the

Royal College of Physicians The Royal College of Physicians of London, commonly referred to simply as the Royal College of Physicians (RCP), is a British professional membership body dedicated to improving the practice of medicine, chiefly through the accreditation of ph ...

Personal

Bradley was born in

Niagara Falls, Ontario Niagara Falls is a city in Ontario, Canada, adjacent to, and named after, Niagara Falls. As of the Canada 2021 Census, 2021 census, the city had a population of 94,415. The city is located on the Niagara Peninsula along the western bank of the ...

. She attended

, earning a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

in 1962 and a

Doctor of Medicine A Doctor of Medicine (abbreviated MD, from the Latin language, Latin ) is a medical degree, the meaning of which varies between different jurisdictions. In the United States, and some other countries, the ''MD'' denotes a professional degree of ph ...

in 1966. Prior to starting medical school, she worked for a year in

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

with CUSO.

Career

Bradley was certified in medicine in 1967. She earned her specialty licenses in psychiatry and child psychiatry in 1972. In the late 1970s, Bradley founded the Child and Adolescent Gender Identity Clinic at the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry. Early models for treating

gender-variant Gender nonconformity or gender variance is gender expression by an individual whose behavior, mannerisms, and/or appearance does not match masculine or feminine gender norms. A person can be gender-nonconforming regardless of their gender ident ...

children involved attempts to change their

gender identity Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with a person's assigned sex or can differ from it. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent and consistent with the in ...

and behavior to conform to social expectations for their assigned gender at birth (AGAB). This approach became best known through the work of Susan Bradley and Kenneth Zucker, and through their colleagues at CAMH in

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

, where it became known as the "living in your own skin" approach. In the 1990s, many clinics began to view being

transgender A transgender (often shortened to trans) person has a gender identity different from that typically associated with the sex they were sex assignment, assigned at birth. The opposite of ''transgender'' is ''cisgender'', which describes perso ...

as a type of normal human variation. However, Bradley and Zucker continued to believe that preventing children from becoming transgender adults was an appropriate and

ethical Ethics is the philosophical study of moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches include normative ethics, applied e ...

clinical goal. In collaboration with her co-author Kenneth Zucker, Bradley saw over 400 cases of children and adolescents with

gender dysphoria Gender dysphoria (GD) is the distress a person experiences due to inconsistency between their gender identitytheir personal sense of their own genderand their sex assigned at birth. The term replaced the previous diagnostic label of gender i ...

and related issues. Bradley served the

American Psychiatric Association The American Psychiatric Association (APA) is the main professional organization of psychiatrists and trainee psychiatrists in the United States, and the largest psychiatric organization in the world. It has more than 39,200 members who are in ...

Subcommittee on Gender Identity Disorders. In 2015, Bradley argued that

gender dysphoria in children Gender dysphoria (GD) in children, also known as gender incongruence (GI) of childhood, is a formal diagnosis for distress (gender dysphoria) caused by incongruence between assigned sex and gender identity in some pre-pubescent transgender a ...

is sometimes rooted in serious family problems, underlying

anxiety disorders Anxiety disorders are a group of mental disorders characterized by significant and uncontrollable feelings of anxiety and fear such that a person's social, occupational, and personal functions are significantly impaired. Anxiety may cause phys ...

psychological trauma Psychological trauma (also known as mental trauma, psychiatric trauma, emotional damage, or psychotrauma) is an emotional response caused by severe distressing events, such as Major trauma, bodily injury, Sexual assault, sexual violence, or ot ...

and might need other treatment than change of gender.Margaret Wente (8 May 2015
The raging battle over transgender kids
''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Newspapers in Canada, Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in Western Canada, western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of more than 6 million in 2024, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on week ...

''
Archive
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Selected publications

According to the

Web of Science The Web of Science (WoS; previously known as Web of Knowledge) is a paid-access platform that provides (typically via the internet) access to multiple databases that provide reference and citation data from academic journals, conference proceedi ...

Bradley has published over 50 articles in

peer-reviewed journal An academic journal (or scholarly journal or scientific journal) is a periodical publication in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. They serve as permanent and transparent forums for the dissemination, scr ...

s. These articles and her books have been cited over 700 times, giving her an

h-index The ''h''-index is an author-level metric that measures both the productivity and citation impact of the publications, initially used for an individual scientist or scholar. The ''h''-index correlates with success indicators such as winning t ...

of 16 * ''Gender identity disorder and psychosexual problems in children and adolescents'', 1996, Guilford Press, , with Kenneth J. Zucker *''Affect regulation and the development of psychopathology'', 2003, Guilford Press * "Physical Attractiveness of Girls with Gender Identity Disorder". 1996, The International Academy of Sex Research, ''Archives of Sexual Behavior'', Vol. 25, No. 1

References

External links

Susan J. Bradley profile
via Hospital for Sick Children {{DEFAULTSORT:Bradley, Susan 1940 births Canadian psychiatrists Canadian sexologists Living people People from Niagara Falls, Ontario Transgender studies academics University of Toronto alumni Academic staff of the University of Toronto Canadian women psychiatrists Canadian expatriates in India