Nanette K. Gartrell, MD : An Oral History
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- In this oral history, psychiatrist, researcher, and author Nanette Gartrell (BA Human Biology 1972) discusses her family and educational background and traces the trajectory of a career devoted to overturning stereotypes and scientific misconceptions about homosexuality, providing non-homophobic healthcare, and preventing sexual misconduct by physicians. Topics include the ramifications of her personal experience of sexual abuse as a child; the emergence of her identity as a lesbian; Stanford student life in the late 1960s, including the meeting of the first organized campus group of lesbians; lesbian communities in Davis, California, and Washington, DC; and the women’s music cultural movement. Gartrell also highlights her work on various APA taskforces related to women and/or sexuality; the organizations Dyke Docs and Women in Medicine; her efforts to ensure the profession treated sexual abuse of patients by psychiatrists as a serious ethical violation; and the National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study, an investigation of American lesbian mothers and their children.
- Summary
- Growing up in Santa Barbara, California, and learning about the existence of gay people from a homophobic uncle • Awareness of personal identity as a lesbian at a young age • Sexual assault as a child by neighborhood boys • Attempted kidnapping • Lasting effects of childhood trauma • Parents’ struggles with mental illness throughout her childhood • High school education in Santa Barbara • Academic dreams and pursuits of her siblings • Decision to become a physician • Path to studying psychiatry • Arrival at Stanford as an undergraduate • Living in Roble Hall and finding a community • Memorable classes at Stanford • Coming out in 1967 and first relationship • Anti-Vietnam War movement on the Stanford campus • Criticism of masculine nature of the antiwar and free love movements • Power and sex abuse in so-called encounter groups led by counseling staff • Environment of daily sexual harassment in part due to fashion • Ideas about virginity and access to contraception at Stanford in the late 1960s • Gynecologist at student health service dismissing her lesbianism • Feeling unsafe on Stanford’s campus as a woman • Taking a self- defense course at Stanford with other women • Pauline Bart’s research on women’s responses to sexual assault • Women’s varsity swim team prior to Title IX • Nature of gay life on campus • Creation of Gay Student Union • Convening the first-known organized meeting of lesbians at Stanford • Inviting lesbian activists Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon to speak at a group meeting • Study abroad in Austria in 1969 • Desire to provide non-homophobic healthcare • Medical views of homosexuality as pathology during the 1960s and the desire to change those views • Creation of the Human Biology major at Stanford • Inspiration from a lecture by Keith Brodie on brain biochemistry and his encouragement to study homosexuality • Undergraduate research project surveying psychiatrists about their attitudes on homosexuality • Work with Brodie to try and disprove a study done about gay men and testosterone levels • Outcome of testosterone level research • Efforts to remove pathological references to homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders • Memories of Keith Brodie as a mentor • Decision to attend UC Davis for medical school • Importance in medicine of treating patients like valuable human beings • Meeting lesbian law students at Davis and connecting with radical lesbian feminism in Washington, DC • Women’s music cultural movement and lesbian communities • Response to hearing Rita Mae Brown of the Furies Collective speak • Conducting research before computers were readily available • Tensions between the women’s movement and the lesbian community • The lavender menace • Moving to Washington, DC, to work in at the NIH and meeting partner Dee Mosbacher • Follow-up study on hormone levels in lesbians at NIH • FBI surveillance of lesbians in the Washington, DC, area • Dee’s experience as a lesbian daughter of a prominent Republican • Facing discrimination as a lesbian when applying for residency at Columbia • Decision to attend Harvard for residency • Fellowship with the American Psychiatric Association (APA) • APA gay/lesbian task force with only men • APA task force on the Curriculum of the Psychology of Women and Men and the ensuing controversy about a sentence in her chapter on sexuality • Curriculum controversy continued • Role as Chair of the National Committee on Women at APA • Equal Rights Amendment activism including picketing with Gloria Steinem • Organizing the lesbian physician group, Dyke Docs • Importance of balancing activism with professional medical work • Being out on the Harvard medical school faculty • Development of lesbian attire and fashion • Resistance to her research agenda from her department chair at Beth Israel hospital • Support from Mitch Rabkin at Harvard for her work and identity • Progression of LGBTQ+ terminology • Dyke Docs in Boston • Being invited to be the keynote speaker at the first National Lesbian Physician Conference in Asilomar, CA • Supporting younger lesbian women in medicine • Presentation at Women in Medicine conference on sex abuse by physicians and the dynamics of power • Presentation at Women in Medicine conference on fat phobia in medicine with Esther Rothblum • Conferences and traditions at Women in Medicine conferences • Work through the APA’s Committee on Women to ascertain the prevalence of psychiatrists sexually abusing patients and the difficulties they encountered • Research on sex abuse of patients and its impacts • Addition of clause on sex abuse in the AMA Codes of Ethics • Encountering an abusing psychiatrist at Harvard Student Health Services and Stanford • Issues of ethics and sex abuse in psychiatry • Mother’s experience with abusive psychiatrist • Resignation from APA over their treatment of women psychiatrists who aided patients in filing sex abuse claims against members of the profession • Creation of the National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study • Challenges of doing large-scale, longitudinal studies • Memorable moments during the study including evidence of a broadly applied understanding of discrimination and moving descriptions of lesbian mothers by their offspring • Publishing The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Others Assess a President • Concluding thoughts on how “the personal is political”
Description
Type of resource | text |
---|---|
Extent | 1 text file |
Place | Stanford (Calif.) |
Publisher | Stanford Historical Society |
Date created | August 29, 2018 - 2018-08-31 |
Language | English |
Digital origin | born digital |
Creators/Contributors
Interviewee | Gartrell, Nanette | |
---|---|---|
Creator | Gartrell, Nanette | |
Interviewer | Marine-Street, Natalie J. | |
Publisher | Stanford Historical Society |
Subjects
Subject | Gartrell, Nanette |
---|---|
Subject | Psychiatry > United States |
Subject | Lesbians |
Subject | Mosbacher, Dee |
Genre | Interview |
Bibliographic information
Biographical Profile |
Nanette Gartrell, MD, is a psychiatrist, researcher, and writer who was a member of Stanford’s class of 1971. She began her research career in 1971 under the supervision of Keith Brodie, MD, then a Human Biology professor and later a president of Duke University. Dr. Gartrell’s first studies focused on psychiatrists’ attitudes toward lesbianism, and hormonal determinants of sexual orientation.
|
---|---|
Audio |
|
Finding Aid | |
Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/tr882hg3507 |
Location | SC0932 |
Repository | Stanford University. Libraries. Department of Special Collections and University Archives |
Access conditions
- Use and reproduction
- The materials are open for research use and may be used freely for non-commercial purposes with an attribution. For commercial permission requests, please contact the Stanford University Archives (universityarchives@stanford.edu).
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved.
Collection
Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program interviews, 1999-2022
View other items in this collection in SearchWorksAlso listed in
Loading usage metrics...