June is Pride Month.
With a medical degree, an internship and a psychiatric residency, John E. Fryer was well equipped to face the obstacle the future held.
He was critical of the Menninger Foundation, the entity at which he completed his psychiatric residency. He was very vocal regarding its homophobic policies. He faced the same discrimination in his pursuit of a residency at the University of Pennsylvania. He was eventually welcomed at the Norristown State Hospital.
John joined the faculty of Temple University where he taught psychiatry. Under a $5000 grant, he focused on professional responses to death and dying.
In 1972, John spoke at the annual American Psychiatric Association conference. He addressed his collogues as the first gay psychiatrist to speak publicly about his sexuality at a time when homosexuality was still listed as a mental illness, a sociopathic personality disturbance. However, due to the time and the overarching attitude, John was forced to appear under the pseudonym “Dr. Henry Anonymous,” wore a rubber Halloween mask and spoke through a microphone that altered his voice. (In 2002, Dr. Jack Drescher, then the head of the APA Committee on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual Issues pointed out “the irony… that an openly homosexual psychiatrist had to wear a mask to protect his career. So the fact that someone would get up on stage, even in disguise, at the risk of professional denunciation or loss of job, it was not a small thing. Even in disguise, it was a very, very brave thing to do.”)
In 2000, John retired from Temple University. He accepted a position at a hospital; in Australia, but he never actually took the job. He was an avid musician, playing the organ at his church as well as at Temple graduation ceremonies.
John experienced health issues later in life, dealing with diabetes and pulmonary sarcoidosis. He passed away in 2003 from pneumonia at the age of 65.