Remembering Queer Pioneer Dr. John Fryer 50 Years After He Stated: 'I Am Homosexual. I am a Psychiatrist.'

May 3 was Dr. John Fryer Day in Pennsylvania. But who was John Fryer, and why should he be remembered for his role in queer history?

Fifty years ago ,on May 3, 1972, Dr. Fryer, a practicing psychiatrist, gave a speech at a national conference of psychiatrists in Texas in which he wore a Richard Nixon mask. Not for comedy or to make a political statement, but, as Joshua Johnson says in an NBC News report, to be safe.

"He spoke as Dr. Henry Anonymous, his microphone disguised his voice and, yes, he did wear. Richard Nixon mask. His opening words: 'I'm a homosexual. I am a psychiatrist,' "Johnson explained. "Dr. Friar's speech lasted just over 10 minutes. He made a case for the American Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality from a list of mental disorders."

In his speech, he said: "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.

"If they were truly comfortable with their own homosexuality, then they could be comfortable with ours. As homosexual psychiatrists, therefore, we must use our skills and wisdom to help all of them, and ourselves, grow to be comfortable with that little piece of humanity called homosexuality."

"Dr. Friar was a professor at Temple University in Philadelphia," Johnson explained. Yesterday was Dr. John Fryer Day in the city and in the state of Pennsylvania. "As for his speech, the APA de-listed homosexuality as a mental illness less than a year later, in 1973."

Johnson spoke with Jillian Eugenios, a contributor to the LGBTQ news site NBC Out, about Fryer's speech, which she said he initially didn't want to deliver.

"You know, Dr. Dryer, he knew the stakes. He did not want to do it at first. I mean, no one did. And that's what's really crucial, is that there was no win here. You know, it was not a time when people were out, especially psychiatrists. Thinking about 50 years ago, there was not one out gay psychiatrist in America. It was too risky. They could lose everything. They could lose their job. And with Dr. Fryer, specifically, he knew those stakes very well. He had lost a job, he had been thrown out of a residency, because he was gay."

Though initially reluctant, Dryer changed his mind after being approached by the organizer of the panel, Barbara Giddings, who arranged for his passage to the conference and, crucially, allowed for his anonymity.

"He was like, 'Okay, if I can go in disguise. I can use a mic to change my voice.' He wore a tuxedo three times his size, and gave his speech, and he had to be masked. It was very brave."

What Dryer's speech initiated was a change in classification of homosexuality in the the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM),which Eugenios described this way:

"The DSM is used by psychiatrists. It's a catalogue of mental disorders. And if, if you were a homosexual at this time, it was thought that you were mentally ill because the DSM said you were. And that meant that you could be institutionalized against your will, you could lose a job, you could lose custody of a child. There were substantial risks. And by removing it from the DSM, that meant that you could no longer use psychiatry as a reason for your discrimination. And you could no longer hide behind that for excluding someone who was gay from something, or from not giving them a job or firing [them] from a job or something. Although, that's a kind of another story, because that does continue to happen. It meant that, as a class, if you were gay, you were seen as a whole, as an entirety of people, that you were ill."

Eugenios added that, to some, Fryers' speech was as important as Stonewall in terms of queer history. "Some people feel that John Fryers' speech was on par with the importance of Stonewall because of the way that it changed the way that LGBTQ people could be [viewed] in this country. And I think that as we reflect on 50 years ago, we think about how important this was."

And while he was being honored, Eugenios feels there should be further acknowledgment of his bravery some 50 years ago. The mayor of Philadelphia, she noted, was honoring Fryer that day. "The history is there, but it's up to us to continue to remember that, to work to uncover more about him, and to remember his legacy. And I think that when you think about how we live today as queer people, or even, like, the fact that you can go see a gay psychiatrist, and that there's a gay organization of psychiatrists, that is Fryer's legacy. And that that's available to us is truly incredible. It speaks to how important it was that he did that speech."