Julie Roy

Julie Ellen Roy (born 1938) is an American mental health activist. She gained notoriety for being the first woman to successfully sue her psychiatrist for coercing her into sex for allegedly therapeutic reasons.

Early life Roy was born 1938 in Port Huron, Michigan.

For a 14 month period, starting in August 1969, Hartogs and Roy routinely had sex, with Hartogs waiving the fee he had set for his services. In turn, Roy started work for Hartogs as a typist in his office. In 1971, Roy stopped seeing Hartogs; upon her release from Hartogs' care, she was committed into the Metropolitan Hospital Center for major depression. Cohen, however, had found that such a hydrocele could easily be operated on, even by Hartogs himself. Further testimony was given at the trial by a selection of Hartogs' former patients, all of whom claimed that Hartogs had made inappropriate sexual advances towards them, and to have not noticed his hydrocele. the jury found Hartogs guilty of medical malpractice, and ordered Hartogs to pay a combined total of $350,000 in damages ($200,000 in compensatory damages, $150,000 in punitive damages). While attempts by Hartogs to have the charges overturned were unsuccessful, he was able to reduce the amount paid in compensatory damages to $50,000 and avoid paying any punitive damages.

Journalist Lucy Freeman partnered with Roy to write Betrayal, an account of her experience seeing Hartogs and the ensuing lawsuit. The book was released in 1976, and was adapted into a made-for-TV movie in 1978.

Personal life In Betrayal, Roy is described by Freeman as bisexual, saying that "she liked women--a lot. But she liked men too." Prior to the final decision in the Hartogs case, Roy was living in San Francisco, where she worked as a clerk in a bookstore.