Marsha Stevens-Pino

Marsha Stevens-Pino is a float RN in Internal Medicine at Vanderbilt. She is also known as “The Mother of Contemporary Christian Music,” and has been performing CCM ever since she wrote her first song, “For Those Tears I Died” in 1969. But when she came out as a lesbian in 1980, her Christian community turned against her. Whole churches tore her music out of their hymnals and mailed the ripped pages to her. 

It was three years before Marsha found Metropolitan Community Church, which was welcoming to the LGBTQ+ community. She began to write music and tour again as an out lesbian Christian artist. She finished her degree in nursing in 1988 and was licensed in 26 states so she could pick up shifts and support herself while on the road. During this time, at the height of the AIDS epidemic, she began to travel with people living with AIDS. She cared for them in her tour bus, hanging their IVs on cabinet door handles and making stops to pick up their medicines. “I was able to take someone to see their father in Dallas, to whom they had not come out, let alone told about having AIDS,” she recounted. “Everyone I traveled with died, but at least there was something I could DO.” 

Marsha married her wife, Cindy Stevens-Pino, in 2003. That same year, she returned to hospital nursing in Florida. While there, she worked with the United Church of Christ in the Western Florida area to sing and challenge the congregations there to be more welcoming of LGBTQ people. All 17 of those churches became open and affirming. Today, Marsha lives in Nashville with her wife and their three rescue dogs and is trying to help Brentwood United Methodist Church become an LGBTQ-affirming congregation.  

Marsha was the first Christian music artist to be open about her sexuality. In her nursing career, she finds it just as important to be out in the workplace. “I think being out at work is a great opportunity to let people feel comfortable with queer identity. I’m a nurse, like they are. I have a family. We cook. We vacation,” Marsha said. “I can see the slight startle sometimes when someone asks what my husband does, and I say, ‘My wife. She works in nursing informatics for Tristar/HCA.’”  

With patients, Marsha rarely discusses her identity, unless she sees that coming out will put a patient at ease. “Often in any of these situations, it is enough to introduce myself as ‘Marsha – she/her/hers.’ We could all do this kind of thing more.” Marsha feels that her position as an out lesbian nurse give her the ability to be the person who calls out prejudice in the workplace before the patient has to do so.

Marsha believes that now is an exciting time for young LGBTQ students who are pursuing careers as healthcare professionals, because they can help the “old guard" transition to full acceptance of the LGBTQ community.  

“ANY time someone tells me that there are some things you ‘just cannot change,’ I tell them that when I was first an RN in the 80s EVERYONE said that you would never ever keep doctors from smoking in the hospital.” Marsha said. “Things do change. Icebergs do move.” 

“We are changing as a culture and we are the perfect group to help lead the change, because we have felt enough of the oppression to know we don’t want to pass it on.” 

On Dec. 17, Vanderbilt University Medical Center honored Dr. John Fryer’s incredible contribution to psychiatry and LGBTQ health by unveiling his portrait, which will be hung in Light Hall to inspire younger generations of LGBTQ healthcare providers. Dr. Fryer was an alumnus of Vanderbilt School of Medicine and was a groundbreaking psychiatrist and activist. Although Dr. Fryer passed in 2003, we were honored with the presence of his close friend, Harry Adamson, who attended the portrait unveiling and shared his memories of Dr. Fryer. 

In 1972, Dr. Fryer took the stage at the American Psychiatric Association conference wearing a mask and a baggy suit to hide his identity. Calling himself Dr. H. Anonymous, he began his speech with “I am a homosexual. I am a psychiatrist.” At the time, homosexuality was listed as a mental illness in the DSM. Disclosing his sexuality could have gotten him fired. Dr. Fryer spoke about the discrimination that he and other LGBTQ people faced at the hands of psychiatrists and challenged their perceptions of homosexual patients. In 1973, homosexuality was removed from the DSM-- a decision that many say was influenced by Dr. Fryer’s speech.

If you would like to watch our livestream of the portrait unveiling, you can find it on our Facebook page here.