Skip to content

Susan Bewley vs. transgender people

Susan Bewley is a British obstetrician and anti-transgender activist. Bewley was an invited speaker at a 2023 anti-trans conference organized by the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine.

Background

Susan Jane Bewley was born in July 1958 in Dublin, Ireland, the eldest of five siblings born to psychiatrist John Bewley and physician Dame Beulah Rosemary (Knox) Bewley. Bewley earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Oxford in 1979 and qualified as a doctor in 1982. Bewley’s research focused on severe maternal diseases and violence in pregnancy.

Bewley identifies as lesbian.

Trans-skeptical research

In 2021 Bewley co-authored a paper critical of calling non-affirming models of care “conversion therapy”:

The concept of conversion therapy with reference to alternative gender identities is examined critically and with reference to psychiatry’s historical relationship with conversion therapy for homosexuality. The authors consider the uncertainties that clinicians face when dealing with something that is no longer a disorder nor a mental condition and yet for which medical interventions are frequently sought and in which mental health comorbidities are common.

In 2022 Bewley co-authored a paper critical of healthcare protocols for trans and gender diverse patients in the UK:

No appropriate primary care audit standard was found. There was inconsistency between multiple UK gender identity clinics’ (GIC) individual recommended schedules of care and between specialty guidelines. Using an international, secondary care, evidence-informed guideline, it appeared that up to two-thirds of patients did not receive all recommended monitoring standards, largely due to inconsistencies between GIC and international guidance. 

References

Boyd, I., Hackett, T., & Bewley, S. (2022). Care of Transgender Patients: A General Practice Quality Improvement Approach. In Healthcare (Vol. 10, Issue 1, p. 121). MDPI AG. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare10010121

Griffin, L., Clyde, K., Byng, R., & Bewley, S. (2020). Sex, gender and gender identity: a re-evaluation of the evidence. In BJPsych Bulletin (Vol. 45, Issue 5, pp. 291–299). Royal College of Psychiatrists. https://doi.org/10.1192/bjb.2020.73

Bewley, S., Clifford, D., McCartney, M., & Byng, R. (2019). Gender incongruence in children, adolescents, and adults. In British Journal of General Practice (Vol. 69, Issue 681, pp. 170–171). Royal College of General Practitioners. https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp19x701909

Sara Dahlen, Catherine Meads and Susan Bewley (2022). WPATH Standards of Care: A new edition using outdated methods weakens the trustworthiness of content. https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/11/4/e048943.responses

Resources

Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)

Twitter (twitter.com)

Academia (kcl.academia.edu)

LinkedIn (linkedin.com)