Something extraordinary happened on the second day of the annual convention of the American Psychiatric Association.
While the psychiatrists assembled, mostly white men in dark suits, settled into rows of chairs in the Danes Room at the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas, a figure had been smuggled through the back corridors. He stepped through a curtain at the last moment and moved to the front of the room.
The audience had an intake of breath. The man had a grotesque appearance. His face was covered by a rubber Nixon mask and he was wearing a wig. He began to speak and his outfit became less important.
He said that he was a homosexual.
The secret world of gay psychiatrists was described by Henry Anonymous, M.D. for the next 10 minutes. They did not exist, so acknowledging it would result in the revocation of one's medical license, and the loss of a career. Sodomy was a crime in 42 states.
The doctor explained that there were many gay people in the A.P.A., the most influential professional body. They hid their private life from their colleagues.
He said that all of us have something to lose.
The trade-off had formed the basis of the masked man's life. The cost was too high. He came to tell them that.
We are taking a bigger risk in not living our full lives.
He received a standing ovation when he took his seat.
50 years ago Monday, a 10-minute speech was delivered by a gay rights activist. The A.P.A. decided that homosexuality was not a mental disorder.
It is rare for psychiatrists to change the culture that surrounds them.
The legal basis for discrimination against gay people was removed by removing the diagnosis from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The process of rolling back those practices could take a long time.
Gay people wouldn't be sent to be cured of their homosexuality, injected with hormones or pored over by analysts if they were referred to psychiatrists.
After delivering his speech, the man in the mask, John Ercel Fryer, 34, flew from Dallas to his home in Philadelphia, noting in his journal how terrifying and profound the experience had been.
The day has passed and I am still alive. He wrote that he had identified with a force akin to his selfhood for the first time.
He didn't tell his mother he did it. He did not tell his sister. He did not tell his childhood friend. He didn't tell anyone for 20 years.
Dr. Fryer, who died in 2003 at the age of 65, stood out for his size, intelligence, and homosexuality.
A friend of his from Kentucky remembers him as the boy in the sailor suit who was led into her second- grade class. She said that he was a genius and just a boy the boys laughed at or teased.
She said that some of their classmates apologized to Dr. Fryer for the way they had treated him.
He attended college at 15 and medical school at 19. His path was blocked many times when he was gay.
In 1964, the most crushing of these setbacks occurred. He had relocated to the East Coast and was a few months into his residency at the University of Pennsylvania when he told a family friend that he was gay.
The young man immediately reported it to his father, who reported it to the department chairman at Penn, according to an interview with the Journal of Gay and Lesbian Psychiatry. The department chairman told Dr. Fryer to either resign or be fired.
It took years of humiliation at the state-run mental health hospital to get him to complete his residency. He faced a long path to tenure after that. He said in a 2001 interview for This American Life that coming out had little appeal.
If you came out as gay, it was a way to not have power. Being a straight, closeted physician allowed me to have power.
A group of gay rights activists protested the annual convention of the A.P.A. in 1970, demanding that the diagnosis of homosexuality be declassified.
The group of closeted A.P.A. members gathered in secret on the edges of the association, and Dr. Fryer watched with disdain.
Barbara Gittings, one of the activists, approached Dr. Fryer to ask for help.
The A.P.A.'s activists noticed that more progressive leaders were rising through the ranks. Instead of picketing, they could confront the psychiatrists with one of their own. They would have to find someone who would agree to do it.
I didn't want to jeopardize the chance that I could get a faculty position somewhere. I was not going to do that as an open thing.
Ms. Gittings kept calling. The risk to Dr. Fryer's gay colleagues was too great and each of them said no.
Dr. Fryer was bothered by their refusals. What if she paid his way to Dallas? Ms. Gittings kept up the ante. If he wore a disguise, no one would know he was him.
He said that she planted in his mind the possibility that he could do something.
The lover of Dr. Fryer and a drama student came up with a plan to hide his identity: a huge tuxedo, a rubber mask, and a wig.
Dr. Fryer said that he felt a great sense of freedom as he stepped onto the stage.
He was the only one of his colleagues who dared.
He said that none of his colleagues in the Gay P.A. would be willing to do that. They were clapping.
The sight of Dr. Fryer had a powerful emotional effect on the psychiatrists gathered in the room, said Dr. Saul Levin, who became the first openly gay man to serve as the A.P.A.'s chief executive and medical director.
He said that it shook them because they saw someone come out in a very weird costume. It made them confused, what the hell is going on here? The person comes out with an eloquent speech.
As he left the stage, Dr. Fryer was so excited that he bought a manual harpsichord, which he described as one of the least wise choices of his life.
He passed the chairman of the psychiatry department at the University of Pennsylvania, who had fired him from his residency, as he returned to his hotel room. Both men showed no sign of being recognized.
The Victorian house where Dr. Fryer lived with his Doberman pinschers and the medical students he took in as boarders is now empty.
He was generous and domineering, charismatic and acerbic, and switched on his Kentucky accent when it suited him.
He didn't have tenure, and his career path was as tenuous as ever. The A.P.A. voted to declassify homosexuality. Dr. Fryer lost his job at Friends Hospital.
He said if you were gay and not flamboyant, we would keep you. We can't keep you since you are both gay and flamboyant.
Dr. Fryer watched as his colleagues were promoted. The Association of Gay and Lesbian Psychiatrists was formed as the Gay P.A. faded. Dr. Fryer didn't take part in it.
He said that he didn't go to the meetings. He said it was as if he had done his thing and it was over for him.
He would tell someone what he had done.
Dr. Karen Kelly said that Dr. Fryer told her over dinner in the late 1970s that he had sex with her.
Ms. Lollis said she and Dr. Fryer talked on the phone several times a week. She didn't know he was Dr. Anonymous until 2002, when he sent her an episode of This American Life.
She said that he didn't share it with anyone.
Dr. Fryer helped pioneer the hospice movement and eventually got tenure at Temple University, where he built a specialty in bereavement. He would often see patients after teaching and having dinner. Many of his patients were dying.
His famous friends, like the anthropologist Margaret Mead or the writer Gail Sheehy, would show up at his big parties. He was wearing dashikis. Traveling for conferences, he would end up in a restaurant with my cousins, dancing with the hula dancer.
Dr. David Scasta, who interviewed Dr. Fryer about his life in 2002, said that he had a sense of resentment towards him.
He felt isolated from the gay community, according to a past president of the Association of Gay and Lesbian Psychiatrists. He was never in a long-term relationship. He felt that his career was not what it could have been.
He said there was a sense of sadness at not being fully accepted.
The significance of the Dr. Anonymous speech was not fully understood by historians until decades later. The surge of forward motion was driven by people.
He said that it wasn't always the law-abiding, nice people who did it, but the ones on the fringes who could make a difference.
The 50th anniversary of the Dr. Anonymous speech will be celebrated with speeches and proclamations in Philadelphia, which has declared May 2 John Fryer Day.
He remarked on it caustically in 2001, saying he was trundled out as an exhibit every time someone wanted an exhibit.
He said that at the time, it was secrecy that gave his act its power.
He said, "As this person who was in disguise, I could say whatever I wanted."
All Rights Reserved © 2024
