[1] Ryan is the director of the Family Acceptance Project (FAP), "a research, intervention, education and policy initiative that works to prevent health and mental health risks for LGBTQ children and youth" based out of the Marian Wright Edelman Institute at San Francisco State University.
Overcoming these rifts is crucial to the physical and mental health of LGBT youth, and it can be done, Ryan argues, without asking the family to disregard their religious or cultural values.
She continued her education to obtain a master's degree in clinical social work from Smith College School for Social Work, and a doctorate in public policy with a focus on health policy from Virginia Commonwealth University.
[4] She spent the 1970s organizing among the community of LGBTQ health care providers before she decided to return to school for her MSW.
[5] Ryan and Rafael Diaz began a study in 2002 to evaluate the health effects, both mental and physical, on children whose parents rejected them or tried to "fix" them.