2023 John Fryer, M.D. Award Winner



AGLP is pleased to announce Nanette Gartrell, M.D., as the recipient of the American Psychiatric Association’s 2023 John Fryer Award. Nanette Gartrell, M.D., is known for her research on sexual abuse of patients by psychiatrists, done in the 1980s, research that was instrumental in changing ethics codes for medicine and psychiatry. Her National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study has been proceeding since 1986, giving a rich window into the lives of a group of lesbian mothers and their children. She maintains a private practice in San Francisco, where she also writes and conducts her research.

In the late 1970s and early 80s, Dr. Gartrell was one of the pioneering members of the Association of Gay and Lesbian Psychiatrists (AGLP). Along with Peggy Hanley-Hackenbruk, MD, and others, Dr. Gartrell paved the way for more women to be involved in AGLP. Dr. Gartrell was a member of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) Committee on Women for several years during the 1980s, and served as Committee chair from 1982-84. She has also had many years of involvement with the lesbian physician’s group, Women in Medicine. As mentor, advocate for women’s rights, through her oral presentations, research publications, and lifelong work in psychiatry, she has had a significant impact on the lives of LGBTQ+ people in the United States and throughout the world.   

We believe that Dr. Gartrell embodies the ideal candidate for the Fryer Award.  Through her sustained life-long work, she has brought world-wide attention to the issues that have directly and indirectly improved the lives and mental health of countless LGBTQ+ people.

The 2023 AGLP John Fryer Award and Lecture, "Out of the Frying Pan and to the Fryer: 54 YEars of LGBTQ+ Advocacy Within Psychiatry" will occur on Monday, May 22, 3:45 to 5:15pm, at the American Pscyhiatric Association Annual Meeting in San Fracisco.

The John E. Fryer, MD, Award honors an individual whose work has contributed to the mental health of sexual minorities. It was named for John Fryer, the psychiatrist who appeared as “Dr. H. Anonymous” at the 1972 APA meeting and helped move forward the process of removing the diagnosis of homosexuality from the DSM. The Award is funded by AGLP members, a matching grant from the Gill Foundation, and a bequest from AGLP founding member Frank Rundle, MD. 

The John E. Fryer, MD, Award honors an individual whose work has contributed to the mental health of sexual minorities. It was named for John Fryer, the psychiatrist who appeared as “Dr. H. Anonymous” at the 1972 APA meeting and helped move forward the process of removing the diagnosis of homosexuality from the DSM. The Award was funded by AGLP members, a matching grant from the Gill Foundation, and a bequest from AGLP founding member Frank Rundle, MD. 

The Fryer Award educates psychiatrists on a wide range of significant LGBT issues.  Fryer lectures take place at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and are popular and well-attended. By publishing these lectures as papers in the Journal of Gay & Lesbian Mental Health, which has a wide circulation among psychiatrists and other mental health workers, the reach of these lectures is extended even further.  Past honorees have included prominent advocates for the LGBT community, such as Barbara Gittings, Frank Kameny, Evan Wolfson, and Bishop Gene Robinson, as well as experts in psychiatry and the mental health field, including Lawrence Hartmann, Richard Pillard, Marjorie Hill, Caitlin Ryan, Billy Jones, and Malcolm Lazin. 

The award is named for John Fryer, M.D., the Philadelphia-area psychiatrist, who appeared with Barbara Gittings and Frank Kameny as “Dr. H. Anonymous” at the 1972 APA Annual Meeting and helped move forward the process of removing the diagnosis of homosexuality from the DSM.  John Fryer, MD was born in Kentucky in 1938.  He attended medical school at Vanderbilt University and completed his psychiatry residency in Philadelphia and spent the rest of his career in Philadelphia.  His early years as a psychiatrist were difficult because of his sexual identity.  He was forced to leave the University of Pennsylvania’s Psychiatry Residency Program when it was discovered that he was gay, and later he completed his residency at Norristown State Hospital. Dr. Fryer was never apologetic about who he was or how he presented himself, and he went on to have a distinguished career as a professor of family and community psychiatry at Temple University.