Nanette K. Gartrell papers

Nanette K. Gartrell, born in 1949, grew up in Santa Barbara, CA. She attended Stanford University (B.A., 1972) and the University of California (M.D., 1976). She received her psychiatric training at Harvard Medical School (1976-1979). Gartrell served on the faculty of Harvard Medical School (1976-1987) and was on the faculty of the University of California, San Francisco (1988-2011). Since 2009, she has been Visiting Distinguished Scholar at the Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law, and had a Guest Appointment at the University of Amsterdam. Gartrell was the first openly lesbian physician of Harvard Medical School's full-time faculty and the youngest psychiatrist to chair the American Psychiatric Association's Committee on Women.

In her official capacity as an advocate for women's mental health, she surveyed physicians about sexual contact with patients and became internationally known for her research on ethics in medicine. Based in part on Gartrell's research and publications, the American Psychiatric Association and the American Medical Association amended their ethics codes to rule sexual involvement with current or former patients unacceptable. Gartrell's work on ethics was also featured in the PBS Frontline documentary, My Doctor, My Lover. Gartrell is best known as principal researcher of the U.S. National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study, the longest-running, ongoing study of lesbian families with children conceived through donor insemination during the lesbian baby boom of the 1980s. Research publications resulting from this work have been cited internationally in litigation and legislation concerning equality in marriage, foster care, and adoption, and were noted in briefs filed with the U.S. Supreme Court in support of marriage equality. The findings from Gartrell's studies also played a critical role in the American Academy of Pediatrics' affirmation of same-gender marriage.

Gartrell and her spouse, Dee Mosbacher, MD, PhD, have been together since 1975 and were first married in San Francisco in 2004. A few months later, when the California State Supreme Court annulled all the recently performed same-sex marriage, the couple married again in British Columbia. Together they have endowed the Mosbacher/Gartrell Center for Media Experimentation and Activism at Pitzer College, a professional-standard post-production facility as a way of ensuring that the work of filmmakers, like Woman Vision, will continue as long as it is needed.