Malcolm Lazin to Deliver 2021 John Fryer Award Lecture

Malcolm Lazin, executive director of Equality Forum, will deliver the 2021 John Fryer Award Lecture at APA’s online Annual Meeting.

Equality Forum is a nonprofit organization headquartered in Philadelphia and dedicated to advancing gay, lesbian, and transgender civil rights with an educational focus. It was first founded by Lazin and other gay activists in 1993 as PrideFest Philadelphia (later PrideFest America). In 2003, the name was changed to Equality Forum.

The John Fryer Award, co-sponsored by APA and the Association of LGBTQ Psychiatrists, was established in 2005 to honor an individual who has contributed to improving the mental health of sexual minorities. The award is named for John Fryer, M.D., a gay psychiatrist who played a crucial role in prompting APA to review the scientific data and remove homosexuality from its diagnostic list of mental disorders in 1973.

Lazin, in comments to Psychiatric News, recalled the dramatic presentation Fryer made, in costume, to psychiatrists gathered in Dallas for the 1972 Annual Meeting. “John Fryer’s testimony at the 1972 APA Annual Meeting about declassifying homosexuality as a mental illness is a seminal moment in American civil rights history,” Lazin said. “Using the pseudonym Dr. Henry Anonymous, appearing in a mask and using a voice modulator, John’s riveting speech caused the APA to reconsider whether the DSM classification was based on science or societal construct. Knowing that if discovered, he could lose his medical license, John’s activism is the pioneering civil rights salvo against marginalizing homosexuals as deviants, criminals, and pariahs.”

In 2018 and again in 2020, Lazin and Equality Forum produced “217 Boxes,” a play by playwright Ain Gordon, at the APA Annual Meeting. The play was about Fryer’s life, as told through letters, papers, and patient notes found in 217 boxes stored at the Philadelphia Historical Society.

In a letter nominating Lazin for the 2021 Fryer Award, Ray Harker, M.D., president of the the Association of LGBTQ Psychiatrists, said he has been an exemplary advocate for the rights of LGBTQ individuals in the United States and throughout the world. “Through film, theater, and, most notably, his work establishing and running Equality Forum, Mr. Lazin has advanced the concerns of LGBTQ+ people and brought extraordinary focus to issues surrounding this community. Through his sustained life-long work, he has brought worldwide attention to the issues that have directly and indirectly improved the lives and mental health of countless LGBTQ+ people.”

APA CEO and Medical Director Saul Levin, M.D., M.P.A., said the Fryer Award memorializes an important figure in APA history whose legacy Lazin has done much to help preserve and extend.

“Malcolm has been a real leader in LGBTQ rights who is eminently deserving of this year’s John Fryer Award,” he said. “He has been a friend to APA and through the Equality Forum has helped to advance our own agenda of expanding quality psychiatric care to minority and disadvantaged groups. We are so pleased to honor Malcolm and his work, and I urge members to attend Malcolm’s lecture in May.”■

Lazin will present the John Fryer Award Lecture, titled “John Fryer, M.D.: American Civil Rights Icon: How APA Bent the Arc of Justice,” on Saturday, May 1, from 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.