Several Problems Press

Pyrophore: National Association of Practising Psychiatrists (NAPP) Inc

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Basics

  • Entity type: Corporation
    • Domicile: Arncliffe, New South Wales, Australia
    • Entity class: Registered Australian body
    • ABN: 22 076 781 854
      • ARBN: 076 781 854
  • Active in: Australia
  • Website: napp.org.au
  • Pyrophore IFF: 🟥 Foe

Timeline

2019, October 16. NAPP publishes a media release, “Gender dysphoria — National inquiry,” consisting of an open letter to Greg Hunt MP (LPA–Flinders, Victoria), then the Australian federal Minister for Health and Aged Care (National Association of Practising Psychiatrists, 2019). The letter:

  • “respectfully request[s]” that:
    • “The commonwealth [sic] government set up a parliamentary enquiry into the treatment of gender dysphoria in children in Australia”;
    • “All medical colleges who have member doctors involved in treating gender dysphoria [sic] children … along with the AMA, the NAPP and other representative medical bodies, and the Medical Board of Australia form a joint committee to develop a set of practice guidelines for the assessment and treatment of children and adolescents under the age of 18 years presenting with gender dysphoria”.
  • asserts that “the scientific knowledge about the nature and cause of” transness in kids and the “effectiveness and dangers of” providing them with gender-affirming care “are not well known”;
  • asserts, incorrectly,1 that “Gender dysphoria is defined as when an individual feels distress when they believe there is a mismatch between their gender identity and their sex assigned at birth (natal gender)”;
  • represents gender-affirming care, on unclear grounds, as subject to “technical complexities” and being of “uncertain safety”;
  • asserts, without citation, that gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonists (“puberty blockers”) have been shown to “have long-lasting harmful effects” and to “not [be] fully reversible”.

2019, November 12. NAPP publishes a media release, “NAPP statement on conversion practices,” by Philip Morris (2019). The statement outlines NAPP’s submission to the Victorian Department of Justice and Community Safety’s Change or Suppression Practices — Legislative Ban consultation (Engage Victoria, 2019/2022). NAPP’s outline:

  • broadly, objects to the proposed ban;
  • asserts that “Medical diagnosis … [w]ith gender dysphoria means exploring and understanding the reasons why an individual has come to the belief that their gender is different to the gender assigned at birth”;
  • asserts that “Any denial of patients presenting with gender dysphoria of the appropriate assessment and treatment of conditions leading to gender dysphoria [emphasis ours] or associated with it is an abjuration of the legitimate care of these individuals”;
  • asserts that “Children and adolescents may temporarily have thoughts of being of a different gender to their gender assigned at birth due to the influences of social contagion, multiple psychosocial factors (including a history of sexual abuse), and the presence of psychiatric illness”;
  • implies that under the proposed laws, detransitioners and people who regret transition will “be banned from stating their experience on public media”;
  • asserts that the proposed ban must be severely limited in scope “so that scientific matters can be debated and people can speak with their health care providers honestly, or if they chose, to tell others publicly of their experience without being prosecuted by the state”.

2020, July 16. NAPP publishes a news release, “Children and young people seeking and obtaining treatment for gender dysphoria in Australia: Trends by state over time (2014-2019)” (National Association of Practising Psychiatrists, 2020). To the release is attached a similarly titled document by Dianna Kenny (2020).

2021, August 6. NAPP publishes an article, “Cross-sex hormone treatment for young people under 18: The legal ramifications,” by Patrick Parkinson (pending) and Philip Morris (Parkinson & Morris, 2021). The article:

  • advocates “continuing caution” in providing gender-affirming care to trans children;
  • “argue[s] that in no circumstances should a medical practitioner initiate gender-affirming treatment for adolescents under 18 without a proper diagnosis and multi-disciplinary assessment of gender dysphoria”;
  • asserts that “gender dysphoria in childhood and adolescence can often be a manifestation of ‘complex pre-existing family, social, psychological or psychiatric conditions’”, citing as its evidence two studies by the USYD–Westmead group, Kozlowska et al. (2021a) and Kozlowska et al. (2021b);
  • characterises the informed consent model of trans healthcare as a “view,” and suggests it is an “incorrect” one.

2021, November 15. NAPP holds a webinar, “Gender dysphoria in young people: Controversy, compromise, and consensus?” (National Association of Practising Psychiatrists, 2021). Listed speakers include Philip Morris, as well as:

  • Cary Breakey;
  • Dianna Kenny;
  • John Whitehall.

2022, March 18. NAPP publishes a news release (Morris, 2022/2023), containing a resource, Managing gender dysphoria in young people: The National Association of Practising Psychiatrists guide. The NAPP and its members cite this document by a multiplicity of titles in other work; Pyrophore refers to it as the NAPP Guide.

Pyrophore does not currently possess a copy of the NAPP Guide of 18 March 2022. The Guide revision of 11 January 2023 (Morris et al., 2023) attributes the work to the following 6 authors:

  1. Philip Morris;
  2. Cary Breakey;
  3. Roberto D’Angelo;
  4. Vivienne Elton;
  5. George Halasz;
  6. Dianna Kenny.

That revision also names 4 “co-signatories”:

  1. Alison Clayton;
  2. Jillian Spencer;
  3. Vanessa Spiller;
  4. Dylan Wilson.

2022, August 17. ABC Sydney’s NSW Afternoons airs an interview by Josh Szeps (2022) of Philip Morris in his capacity as NAPP President.

2022, September 15. The NAPP publishes a news release, “Interview with Paul Turton on gender dysphoria” (National Association of Practising Psychiatrists, 2022), to which is attached an audio recording of an interview by Paul Turton of Philip Morris in his capacity as NAPP President. While the picture used by the NAPP to promote the interview suggests it was broadcast on ABC Radio, Pyrophore is not aware that an ABC Radio copy of the interview is available as of 3 April 2024.

2023, January 11. NAPP publishes a revision of the NAPP Guide (Morris et al., op. cit.).

2023, June 13. Sky News Australia’s Credlin features an interview with Philip Morris in his capacity as NAPP President (Staveley, 2023).

2023, June 19. NAPP holds a webinar, “Critical issues for psychiatry in Australia” (National Association of Practising Psychiatrists, 2023). The webinar includes an item on “Iatrogenic and ethical issues in gender dysphoria,” presented by George Halasz.

2023, August 11. NAPP publishes a media release, “Submission to the NSW Department of Communities and Justice and the NSW Ministry of Health regarding Banning LGBTQ+ Conversion Practices: Consultation Paper dated 31st July 2023,” attributed in metadata to Lena Fisman (2023). The release consists of a document titled “Understanding conversion practices legislation: Navigating the distinctions,” which appears to be a submission to a “targeted, confidential consultation” on a legislative ban of conversion therapy which the NSW Department of Communities and Justice (2024) indicated it conducted around that time. The submission:

  • asserts, with questionable meaning and accuracy,2 that “Psychological interventions that promote exploration of gender identity … have become the standard for first-line treatment internationally”;
  • asserts that regulating health practitioners through legislation is unnecessary because registered health practitioners are “already held accountable to stringent professional standards” through the “Australian Health Practitioners Regulation Authority [sic; Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency]”;
  • asserts that “It is crucial for any legislation to include a specific exclusion for non-directive psychotherapy practices or other clinical interventions that do not proactively affirm or support a person’s gender identity and expression”.

Notes

“Gerald”

As with SP Press, NAPP uses a content management system which distinguishes between “posts” and “pages,” and displays metadata on posts which includes a byline linked to the user account from which the post was published.

Some posts on NAPP’s website are attributed in the metadata to “Gerald”. The .au Domain Administration’s full WHOIS record for NAPP.ORG.AU names an individual with that given name in the Registrant Contact Name and Tech Contact Name fields. There is no suggestion that the posts in question are attributable to that individual. Rather, the context suggests that the individual in question was most likely engaged to build NAPP’s website and their forename is accordingly attached to the first account created on the website, which is intermittently being used by members of NAPP to publish posts. Accordingly, posts with no author identification other than metadata identifying “Gerald” as the author are attributed here to NAPP in general.

Footnotes

1 — This appears to be derived from the definition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which as a nosological authority is roughly as ubiquitous among Australian psychiatrists as among their US American peers; specifically, it appears to be derived from the Fifth Edition (DSM-5) of 2013, which in its pre-Text Revision (DSM-5-TR) format was the current edition at the time the open letter was published.

However, it represents it substantially incorrectly. The corresponding passage of the DSM-5 definition is as follows:

A marked incongruence between one’s experienced/expressed gender and primary and/or secondary sex characteristics […]

The NAPP’s quotation of the definition uses the words “they believe,” suggesting that the belief may be incorrect. Neither this language nor any corresponding language appears in the DSM-5 definition.

2 — NAPP provides a citation here: to itself, in the form of the NAPP Guide, with six specific pinpoint citations.

References

Engage Victoria (2022, February 17). Change or suppression practices — legislative ban [Consultation]. Victorian State Government; Archive Today. Retrieved 3 April 2024.

Fisman, L. (2023, August 11). Submission to the NSW Department of Communities and Justice and the NSW Ministry of Health regarding Banning LGBTQ+ Conversion Practices: Consultation Paper dated 31st July 2023 [News release]. National Association of Practising Psychiatrists Inc; Archive Today. Retrieved 3 April 2024.

Kenny, D. (2020, July 14). Children and young people seeking and obtaining treatment for gender dysphoria in Australia: Trends by state over time (2014-2019): Update [Report]. National Association of Practising Psychiatrists Inc.

Kozlowska, K., Chudleigh, C., McClure, G., Maguire, A.M., & Ambler, G.R. (2021, January 12). Attachment patterns in children and adolescents with gender dysphoria. Frontiers in Psychology, 11. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.582688. Retrieved 3 April 2024.

Kozlowska, K., McClure, G., Chudleigh, C., Maguire, A.M., Gessler, D., Scher, S., & Ambler, G.R. (2021b, February). Australian children and adolescents with gender dysphoria: Clinical presentations and challenges experienced by a multidisciplinary team and gender service. Human Systems, 1(1), 70–95. doi: 10.1177/26344041211010777. Retrieved 3 April 2024.

Morris, P. (2019, November 12). NAPP statement on conversion practices [Media release]. National Association of Practising Psychiatrists Inc; Archive Today. Retrieved 3 April 2024.

Morris, P. (2023, January 11). Managing gender dysphoria/incongruence in young people: A guide for health practitioners [News release]. (Original article published 18 March 2022.) National Association of Practising Psychiatrists Inc; Archive Today. Retrieved 3 April 2024.

Morris, P., Breakey, C., D’Angelo, R., Elton, V., & Halasz, G. (2023, January 11). Managing gender dysphoria in young people: The National Association of Practising Psychiatrists guide. National Association of Practising Psychiatrists Inc. Retrieved 3 April 2024.

National Association of Practising Psychiatrists (2019, October 16). Gender dysphoria — National enquiry [Media release]. Archive Today. Retrieved 3 April 2024.

National Association of Practising Psychiatrists (2020, July 16). Children and young people seeking and obtaining treatment for gender dysphoria in Australia: Trends by state over time (2014-2019) [News release]. National Association of Practising Psychiatrists Inc; Archive Today. Retrieved 3 April 2024.

National Association of Practising Psychiatrists (2021, October 27). Free webinar: Gender dysphoria in young people: Controversy, compromise, and consensus? [Media release]. Archive Today. Retrieved 3 April 2024.

National Association of Practising Psychiatrists (2022, September 15). Interview with Paul Turton on gender dysphoria [News release]. Retrieved 3 April 2024.

National Association of Practising Psychiatrists (2023, June 9). Critical issues for psychiatry in Australia: Free webinar that discusses key issues impacting our profession [Media release]. Archive Today. Retrieved 3 April 2024.

NSW Department of Communities and Justice (2024, March 28). Legislative reform to ban LGBTQ+ conversion practices in NSW. NSW Government; Archive Today. Retrieved 3 April 2024.

Parkinson, P., & Morris, P. (2021, August 6). Cross-sex hormone treatment for young people under 18: The legal restrictions. National Association of Practising Psychiatrists Inc; Archive Today. Retrieved 3 April 2024.

Staveley, P. (2023, June 13). Australian doctors warned to use caution when prescribing puberty [sic] due to ‘serious side effects’. SkyNews.com.au (News Corp Australia); Archive Today. Retrieved 3 April 2024.

Szeps, J. (Host) (2022, August 17). The Tavistock gender identity clinic is closing down in the UK: what are the impacts for Australia? [Radio show segment]. In NSW afternoons. ABC Sydney (Australian Broadcasting Corporation). Retrieved 3 April 2024.

Article metadata

  • Revision: #1 (3 April 2024).
  • Created: 3 April 2024.