Nanette Gartrell

Nanette Gartrell is an American psychiatrist, researcher, lesbian activist and writer. Gartrell is the author of over 70 research reports on topics ranging from medical student depression to sexual minority parent families to sexual exploitation of patients by healthcare professionals. Her investigation into physician misconduct led to a clean-up of professional ethics codes and the criminalization of boundary violations. For this work, she was featured in a 1991 PBS Frontline documentary titled My Doctor, My Lover.[1]

Gartrell is also the author of My Answer Is NO. . . . If That's Okay with You: How Women Can Say NO with Confidence.[2][3] The Nanette K. Gartrell papers, a collection of Gartrell's personal, professional, and political life, are archived in the Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts.[4]

Education and affiliations

Gartrell attended Stanford University (class of 1971)[5] and the University of California, trained at Harvard, and has been a Williams Institute Visiting Distinguished Scholar at the UCLA School of Law since 2009.[6] She has had a guest appointment at the University of Amsterdam since 2009. She served on the faculty of Harvard Medical School from 1976 to 1987, and was on the faculty at the University of California, San Francisco, from 1988 to 2011. Gartrell has a private psychiatry practice, and for 13 years volunteered her psychiatric services to chronically mentally ill homeless people.[7] An experience in one of these shelters became the basis for her article in the San Francisco Chronicle Magazine, "A Tenderloin Tail."[8]

Research

Gartrell is the Principal Researcher for the US National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLLFS). The NLLFS follows lesbian mothers and their children who were conceived by donor insemination during the 1980s. The study, which was initiated by Gartrell in 1986, examines the social, psychological, and emotional development of the children as well as the dynamics of planned lesbian families. This is the longest-running and largest prospective investigation of lesbian mothers and their children in the United States.[9]

In June 2010, the NLLFS study US National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study: Psychological Adjustment of the 17-Year-Old Adolescents was published in Pediatrics.[10] The study's results showed that the 17-year-olds of lesbian mothers were rated significantly higher in social, school/academic, and total competence and significantly lower in social problems, rule-breaking, aggressive, and externalizing problem behavior than their age-matched counterparts. This publication prompted international media attention including articles in the Los Angeles Times, The Telegraph (UK),[11] Time,[12] and a mention on The Colbert Report.[13] Discover magazine named this story as one of the top 100 stories of 2010, as number 88: "Same-Sex Parents Do No Harm".[14]

In 2012, UCLA Today published an article titled "Researcher sorts out fact from fallacy in three-decade study of lesbian families",[15] highlighting Gartrell's 30-plus years of work on the NLLFS study.

Publications

Selected scholarly articles (co-authored)

Books

In 2008, Gartrell published My Answer Is No ... If That's Okay with You,[3] a book written to help women learn to say "no" with confidence. The book, published by Simon & Schuster, featured interviews with successful and prominent women, including former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, international AIDS activist Mary Fisher, best-selling author Danielle Steel, President of the Center for the Advancement of Women Faye Wattleton, Wall Street Journal contributing editor Peggy Noonan, breast cancer surgeon Susan Love, former First Lady Barbara Bush, and others.[2]

As part of the promotion for the book, Gartrell appeared on Good Morning America,[16] and was interviewed for numerous radio and TV programs around the country.[17]

Gartrell is also the editor of Bringing Ethics Alive: Feminist Ethics in Psychotherapy Practice (1994);[18][19] and the co-editor of Everyday Mutinies (2001).[20][21]

Awards and honors

  • (2008) One of the Ten Most Powerful Lesbian Doctors, Curve magazine.[22]
  • (2008) American Psychological Association (Division 44) Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award.[23]
  • (2010) Pediatrics publication by Drs. Gartrell and Bos cited as one of top 100 science stories of the year by Discover magazine.[24]
  • (2013) Association of Women Psychiatrists Presidential Commendation Award, American Psychiatric Association.[25]
  • (2014) Drs. Gartrell and Mosbacher were the co-recipients of the Mathew O. Tobriner Public Service award from the Legal Aid Society, Employment Law Center.[26]
  • (2014) Gay and Lesbian Medical Association Achievement Award.[27]
  • (2017) United Kingdom LGBT History Posters.[28]

Personal life

Gartrell is married to Dee Mosbacher MD, Ph.D.,[29] a documentary filmmaker whose film Straight From the Heart was nominated for an Academy Award in 1994. The two live together in San Francisco, California.

References

  1. ^ "Frontline: My Doctor, My Lover". Open Vault. WGBH Media Library and Archives. November 12, 1991. Archived from the original on June 22, 2018. Retrieved July 7, 2025.
  2. ^ a b "My Answer is No . . . If That's Okay with You". Simon & Schuster. n.d. Archived from the original on August 15, 2011. Retrieved July 7, 2025.
  3. ^ a b Gartrell, Nanette (2008). My Answer Is No-- If That's Okay with You: How Women Can Say No with Confidence and (Still) Feel Good About It (1st Free Press hardcover ed.). New York: Free Press. ISBN 9781416546931. OCLC 124036193.
  4. ^ "Nanette K. Gartrell Papers, 1949–2015". Sophia Smith Collection. Northampton, Massachusetts. n.d. Archived from the original on March 17, 2016. Retrieved July 7, 2025.
  5. ^ Gartrell, Nanette (2016). "Nanette Gartrell '71, occupation: Academic Psychiatrist, HumBio area of study: mental health". Stanford Human Biology. Stanford University. Archived from the original on December 11, 2016. Retrieved July 7, 2025.
  6. ^ "Nanette Gartrell". Williams Institute. UCLA School of Law. n.d. Retrieved July 7, 2025.
  7. ^ "Nanette Gartrell, M.D." National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study. 2024. Retrieved July 7, 2025.
  8. ^ Gartrell, Nanette (April 30, 2006). "A Tenderloin Tail". San Francisco Chronicle Magazine. SFGate. Retrieved July 7, 2025.
  9. ^ "About". National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study. 2024. Retrieved July 8, 2025.
  10. ^ Gartrell, Nanette; Bos, Henny (June 7, 2010). "US National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study: Psychological Adjustment of the 17-Year-Old Adolescents". Pediatrics. American Academy of Pediatrics. doi:10.1542/peds.2009-3153. Archived from the original on June 11, 2010. Retrieved July 8, 2025.
  11. ^ "Children raised by lesbians 'have fewer behavioural problems'". The Telegraph. UK. June 8, 2010. Retrieved July 8, 2025.
  12. ^ Park, Alice (June 7, 2010). "Study: Children of Lesbians May Do Better Than Their Peers". Time. Archived from the original on June 9, 2010. Retrieved July 8, 2025.
  13. ^ "Testoster-Ruin - Hanna Rosin". The Colbert Report. Comedy Central. June 15, 2010. Archived from the original on June 29, 2016.
  14. ^ Barth, Amy (December 16, 2010). "Top 100 Stories of 2010 #88: Same-Sex Parents Do No Harm". Discover. Archived from the original on December 22, 2010. Retrieved July 8, 2025.
  15. ^ Lin, Judy (November 28, 2012). "Researcher sorts out fact from fallacy in three-decade study of lesbian families". UCLA Newsroom. Archived from the original on October 14, 2014. Retrieved July 8, 2025.
  16. ^ "ABC News Good Morning America Good Morning America Condensed: 1/10/08". Amazon. April 7, 2010.
  17. ^ "Appearances, Media & Book Signings". My Answer Is No. 2023. Retrieved July 8, 2025.
  18. ^ Gartrell, Nanette K., ed. (1994). Bringing Ethics Alive: Feminist Ethics in Psychotherapy Practice. New York: Haworth Press. ISBN 9781560245117. OCLC 29360826.
  19. ^ "Bringing Ethics Alive: Feminist Ethics in Psychotherapy Practice". Routledge. 2025. Retrieved July 8, 2025.
  20. ^ Gartrell, Nanette K.; Rothblum, Esther D., eds. (2011). Everyday Mutinies: Funding Lesbian Activism. New York: Harrington Park Press. ISBN 9781560232599. OCLC 47625322.
  21. ^ "Everyday Mutinies: Funding Lesbian Activism". Routledge. 2025. Retrieved July 8, 2025.
  22. ^ Curve Magazine: Ten Most Powerful Lesbian Doctors
  23. ^ "Distinguished Scientific Contribution".
  24. ^ The 100 Top Science Stories of 2010, Discover Magazine
  25. ^ AWP Winter 2013, Volume 31, Number 1
  26. ^ "Home".
  27. ^ 2014 Gay and Lesbian Medical Association Achievement Awards
  28. ^ "Curriculum Subject Area Identities for Teaching Resources". York LGBT History Month. n.d. Archived from the original on July 14, 2017. Retrieved July 7, 2025.
  29. ^ Dee Mosbacher, Nanette Gartrell in The New York Times, Fashion and Style, January 16, 2005
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