A previous Substack posting included a brief synopsis of some of the events leading to the removal, in 1973, of the diagnosis of “homosexuality per se” from the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM).
To briefly recount, following the Stonewall riots of 1969 in New York City’s Greenwich Village, an energized gay civil rights movement believed psychiatry diagnosing “homosexuality” as a mental disorder was a major source of antigay stigma that needed to be addressed.
This belief led gay and lesbian activists to disrupt the 1970 annual meeting of the APA in San Francisco. They took charge of the podium and microphones at scientific meetings devoted to “curing” homosexuality.
APA 1971: Washington DC
The disruptive activism got APA’s attention. As a result, the following year, at APA’s 1971 convention in Washington DC, some gay and lesbian activists, led by Frank Kameny, PhD, were formally invited to present a panel they called, “Lifestyles of Non-Patient Homosexuals.”
For those who grew up watching Ellen Degeneres and Will and Grace since childhood, it may be difficult to fully comprehend how eye-opening an experience this panel was for many of the psychiatrists in attendance. Up until that moment, few if any of them had ever met an openly gay or lesbian person who was not a patient in their professional consulting rooms.
While some activists were invited to the convention as guests of APA, they nevertheless decided to once again “zap,” that is disrupt APA’s Convocation of Fellows—an annual gathering of the organization’s most distinguished and accomplished members. As Frank Kameny told it:
“The convention was being held in the Shoreham Hotel. Our people had scouted out the woods in the back of the hotel, had blocked open the fire doors that led into the convocation hall, and were prepared to come in and disrupt the convocation.
Those of us who were officially speaking at the meeting were there by invitation, so we were sitting inside the hall, knowing that the protest was going to happen and just waiting for it to happen.
Ramsey Clarke was the invited speaker. In the middle of his presentation, in they burst, a mixture of our people and, operating separately but working together, some . . . Vietnam War protestors. They entered and proceeded to assemble at the foot of the platform, which was just a short distance above the floor.
Sitting on the stage were a group of esteemed psychiatrists, wearing gold medals hanging on their chests, and ribbons around their necks. These elderly psychiatrists proceeded to beat the intruders over the head with their gold medals and chase them all back out the door, including [Cliff Witt] who had been picked to climb up on the platform and denounce psychiatry.
After our people were chased out, the doors were locked, and so to those of us sitting inside it became evident that unless something were done on the spot, the whole thing was just going to fade away.
So, I marched up to the platform, climbed on, and seized the microphone. The moderator said, “What are you doing?” and I said, “I’m seizing the microphone from you.” He said, “Well, give me your name and I’ll introduce you.” So, I did, and he did, and I then proceeded to denounce psychiatry for its treatment of homosexuals.
The psychiatrists sitting in the back were, of course, not terribly happy about this, so they pulled the plug on the microphone. Well, I’ve never needed a microphone in order to be heard, so I just went on while the assembled psychiatrists shook their fists at me and called us Nazis and other names. We began to get the point across, which was what was important.
[Kameny, 2009, p. 79]
APA 1972: Dallas
Despite the disruption—or maybe even because of it—at APA’s 1972 annual meeting in Dallas, the activists were once again invited to speak. This time the panel they organized was entitled: “Psychiatry: Friend or Foe to Homosexuals: A Dialogue.”
Kameny returned to speak, this time joined by Barbara Gittings who, at the time, chaired the Task Force on Gay Liberation of the American Library Association. In organizing that panel, Kay Tobin Lahusen, who ended up taking historic photographs of the panel although she did not speak herself, thought it a good idea to include a gay psychiatrist on the panel. As Gittings recalled:
“My partner Kay said, ‘This isn’t right. Here you have two psychiatrists pitted against two gays, and what you really need is someone who is both.’ The panel moderator, Dr. Kent Robinson, agreed to add a gay psychiatrist if we could find one. In 1972 who would come forward? Oh how we searched! Kay and I wrote letters and made phone calls around the country. (Remember, no e-mail in those days.)”
[Gittings, 2008, p. 291]
The problem the panelists faced was how to find an openly gay psychiatrist to speak in a public setting when homosexuality was still illegal in almost every US state. Coming out meant a physician could lose a medical license; and most certainly, coming out at that time meant losing one’s hospital or university job—or any sources of referrals.
Barbara Gittings reached out to John Fryer, MD:
“In 1971 I was not feeling very secure. I was not [employed] full-time anywhere. I was only on the clinical faculty at Temple and did not have tenure. But I thought about it and realized it was something that had to be done.
I had been thrown out of a residency because I was gay; I had lost a job because I was gay. That perspective needed to be heard from a gay psychiatrist by an audience that perhaps might be more inclined to listen to a psychiatrist.
I told Barbara that I would participate on the panel but I could not do it as me. I didn’t feel secure enough. Barbara asked what had to be done so that I could be on the committee. She then agreed to help me with a disguise.”
[John Fryer, quoted in Scasta, 2002, pp. 79-80]
Dr. H Anonymous
And what a disguise it turned out to be. Identifying himself as Dr. H(omosexual) Anonymous, Dr. Fryer recalled:
“Now, when you’re my size, coming up with a disguise is not always easy. Fortunately, my lover at that time was a drama major and, with his assistance, we created an outfit. I wore this formal outfit that was several sizes too big with a blue shirt, and I had a rubber mask that went over my head that had different features from my own. My lover instructed me on how to make the mask look even more different.”
[John Fryer, quoted in Scasta, 2002, p. 80]
Barbara Gittings, Frank Kameny, Dr. H Anonymous
Photo by Kay Lahusen
Using a voice-disguising microphone, Dr. Anonymous/Fryer spoke to his fellow psychiatrists. Some of his remarks, although not all of them, are below:
“I am a homosexual. I am a psychiatrist. I, like most of you in this room, am a member of the APA and am proud to be a member. However, tonight I am, insofar as in it is possible, a ‘we.’
I attempt tonight to speak for many of my fellow gay members of the APA as well as for myself. When we gather at these conventions, we have a group, which we have glibly come to call the Gay-PA. And several of us feel that it is time that real flesh and blood stand up before you and ask to be listened to and understood insofar as that is possible.
I am disguised tonight in order that I might speak freely without conjuring up too much regard on your part about the particular WHO I happen to be. I do that mostly for your protection. I can assure you that I could be any one of more than a hundred psychiatrists registered at this convention. And the curious among you should cease attempting to figure out who I am and listen to what I say.
[]
As psychiatrists who are homosexual, we must know our place and what we must do to be successful. If our goal is academic appointment, a level of earning capacity equal to our fellows, or admission to a psychoanalytic institute, we must make certain that no one in a position of power is aware of our sexual orientation or gender identity.
Much like the black man with the light skin who chooses to live as a white man, we cannot be seen with our real friends–our real homosexual family–lest our secret be known and our dooms sealed. There are practicing psychoanalysts among us who have completed their training analysis without mentioning their homosexuality to their analysts. Those who are willing to speak up openly will do so only if they have nothing to lose, then they won’t be listened to.
“What is it like to be a homosexual who is also a psychiatrist? Most of us Gay-PA members do not wear our badges into the Bayou Landing, [a gay bar in Dallas] or the local Canal Baths. If we did, we could risk the derision of all the non-psychiatrist homosexuals.
There is much negative feeling in the homosexual community towards psychiatrists. And those of us, who are visible, are the easiest targets from which the angry can vent their wrath. Beyond that, in our own hometowns, the chances are that in any gathering of homosexuals, there is likely to be any number of patients or paraprofessional employees who might try to hurt us professionally in a larger community if those communities enable them to hurt us that way.
He concluded with:
Finally, pull up your courage by your bootstraps and discover ways in which you and homosexual psychiatrists can be closely involved in movements which attempt to change the attitudes of heterosexuals– and homosexuals–toward homosexuality. For all of us have something to lose. We may not be considered for that professorship. The analyst down the street may stop referring us his overflow. Our supervisor may ask us to take a leave of absence.
We are taking an even bigger risk, however, not accepting fully our own humanity, with all of the lessons it has to teach all the other humans around us and ourselves. This is the greatest loss: our honest humanity. And that loss leads all those others around us to lose that little bit of their humanity as well. For, if they were truly comfortable with their own homosexuality, then they could be comfortable with ours. We must use our skills and wisdom to help them–and us–grow to be comfortable with that little piece of humanity called homosexuality.”
John Fryer, MD (1937-2003)
The audience reaction turned out to be powerful as the organizers had hoped:
He really rocked the audience, speaking as a closeted gay person to his own colleagues, telling why he couldn’t be open in his own profession. To back up John Fryer, I read excerpts from letters I’d solicited from the other gay psychiatrists who felt they had to decline to be on the panel.
[Gittings, 2008, p. 291]
Coda
In 1993, Dr. Fryer came out publicly to reveal he had been Dr. Anonymous. He passed away in 2003, a year after being interviewed for the Oral History of the Journal of Gay and Lesbian Psychotherapy (now the Journal of Gay and Lesbian Mental Health) from which some of his comments and reflections are quoted.
His actions, more than a half century ago, helped change the world. Although he was not the only psychiatrist to contribute to those changes (and future Substack postings will profile other contributors to that change), his contribution was one of the most theatrical.
Which makes sense since everyone knows how much gay people love the theater . . .
References
The documentary film, Cured, is worth a viewing as it chronicles many of the events and individuals that brought about changes in American psychiatry’s relationship to the LGBTQ+ community: [Disclosure: I served as a consultant to the filmmakers].
Bayer, R. (1987). Homosexuality and American Psychiatry: The Politics of Diagnosis. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Drescher, J. & Merlino, J.P., eds. (2007). American Psychiatry and Homosexuality: An Oral History. New York: Routledge.
Drescher, J. (2015). Out of DSM: Depathologizing homosexuality. Behavioral Sciences, 5:565-575.
Gittings, B. (2008). Show and Tell. J. Gay and Lesbian Mental Health, 12(3):289-294. Reprinted in: American Psychiatry and Homosexuality: An Oral History, eds. J. Drescher & J.P. Merlino. New York: Routledge, 2007, pp. xv-xx.
Kameny, F. (2009). How it all started. J. Gay & Lesbian Mental Health, 13(2):76-81.
Scasta, D.L. (2002). John E. Fryer, MD, and the Dr. H. Anonymous episode. J. Gay & Lesbian Psychotherapy, 6(4):73-84. Reprinted in: American Psychiatry and Homosexuality: An Oral History, eds. J. Drescher & J.P. Merlino. New York: Routledge, 2007, pp. 15-25.
Stoller, R.J., Marmor, J., Bieber, I., Gold, R., Socarides, C.W., Green, R. & Spitzer, R.L. (1973). A symposium: Should homosexuality be in the APA nomenclature? American J. Psychiatry, 130(11):1207-1216.