audio by artist 'christine burns'

Working to accommodate transsexual employees when they “transition” from one sex to another is more than just “Political Correctness”or a matter of the law. It makes strategic sense too, argues trans rights campaigner Christine Burns. That “Employee Relations Challenge” who walks into your office may also have your company’s crown jewels in their head.

You can read a transcript of this talk here.

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Christine Burns addresses London’s Pride rally in Trafalgar Square in 2005

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Christine Burns stood in for Stephen Whittle to give this keynote speech to Unison’s National LGBT Conference at Manchester Town Hall on 19th November 2006. Looking back to her previous guest appearance at such an event in 2002, she praised the Union’s membership for having embraced support for trans people and challenged the whole union to do more to show society how inclusiveness is practiced.

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Many people with gender identity issues are finding that their Primary Care Trusts are unsympathetic to funding any kind of referral to specialist Gender Identity Clinics - even just to explore the individual’s needs and support them. In the Calderdale area of West Yorkshire Claire Eastwood has taken a bold approach to dealing with such policies. She’s sought the backing of local councillors to help her fight an essentially political policy with political expertise.

Councillor Fekri says that the thing that has surprised him most about getting involved in Claire’s cause is the sheer numbers of ordinary decent people who sympathise and think trans people should have fair treatment too. In his view it is only the Primary Care Trust that is backward and failing to understand and reflect public opinion. He thinks that more trans people in other parts of the country should try take the same approach as Claire and seek out the help of local politicians.

Councillors on local health scrutiny committees cannot force a PCT to change its policies; yet they can have a very significant role in showing NHS administrators where the strength of public opinion lies.

These days it is often quite firmly in favour of trans people being treated fairly and equally like everyone else. Meanwhile Claire says she will fight on.

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Christine Burns answers the question on BBC World Service - 28^th January 2007

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The North West Regional Assembly organised an LGBT Health Symposium in Manchester on 29th March, 2007 entitled “Promoting Health for the Region’s Wealth: Meeting the Health Needs of the LGBT Community”. The event was the joint brainchild of PFC’s Christine Burns and Jacqui Cross of the Manchester-based Lesbian and Gay Foundation (LGF) and was organised and funded by the North West Equality and Diversity Group - a body set up by the regional assembly to help promote the region’s goal to become a totally inclusive and equal community.

Christine was the first speaker of the day, following an introduction from the Chair, Evelyn Asante-Mensah, who coincidentally heads up the board of Manchester’s Primary Care Trust. Christine begins here by reflecting on how proper availability of healthcare is not only important to individuals but also affects a society’s wealth and social cohesion. She then explains some of the ways in which trans people are currently failed by public health provision in the region and sets down some basic goals for achieving better.

The Department of Health’s Equalities and Human Rights group organises an annual conference for stakeholders interested in the work of its Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Advisory Group (SOGIAG). Over the course of a full day’s proceedings each of the various work stream chairs normally present details of what their team has been working on during the year. Senior civil servants also discuss their work and inclusion aims too.

Christine Burns, as chair of the transgender workstream, began her presentation with a review of what is now known in firm statistical terms about the problems encountered by trans people in the National Health Service. On Gender Reassignment treatment she explained the way in which trans people can receive better services, including more choice, at no more cost to the public purse than today. On more general healthcare she strongly condemned the discrimination and ignorance that is manifested in recent research and introduced the first batch of training, education and support resources to begin working on the challenge through staff development. Graham Rushbrook of “Health First”, one of the training developers, also contributes his experiences of piloting the material with a selection of health service staff and managers.

See the slides that accompanied Christine’s presentation.

On 26th April Christine Burns was invited to address a conference organised by the Ambulance Services Association at University College London.

The ASA (http://www.asa.uk.net/) is the main body representing ambulance services across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, plus the public ambulance services of Guernsey, Jersey, the Isle of Man and Gibraltar. The ASA provides a central forum for all things related to ambulance services, from education and training through to clinical developments and research. The association has a number of partners and they are part-funded by the Department of Health.

Speakers included experts from the Department of Health Gender Equality Group, NHS Employers, “Opportunity Now”, The British Association for Women in Policing, Men’s Health Forum and the Equal Opportunities Commission, plus Christine Burns to talk about the trans perspective.

All the speakers dealt with different aspects of the Gender Equality Duty, which NHS Ambulance Trusts must respond to like all public-funded bodies. Starting with “Gender 101” much of the material covered in this 40 minute presentation would be equally applicable as an introduction for virtually any organisation; therefore it’s hoped that many people will be able to benefit from the recording of Christine’s presentation.

Dominic Davies is the founder of Pink Therapy (www.pinktherapy.com). London-based Pink Therapy are the UK’s largest independent therapy organisation working with gender and sexual minority clients. According to their web site they aim to promote high quality therapy and training services for people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and others who identify as being sexual minorities. In conversation with Christine Burns, Dominic reflected on the amount of work that SOGIAG has accomplished and the different position of NHS and private sector therapists.

Terry Reed and her husband Bernard are well known to Britain’s trans community as founding members of the Gender Identity Research and Education Society (GIRES - www.gires.org.uk). Christine Burns talked to Terry following the 2007 SOGIAG National Stakeholder conference about the educational literature that GIRES has been commissioned to produce for the trans workstream.

Ben Gooch describes himself as a Queer Trans Man. In this interview with Christine Burns following the annual SOGIAG stakeholder meeting he describes some of his day-to-day work for the LGBT hate crime charity Galop (www.galop.org.uk), his impressions of SOGIAG’s work and his own idea of a telephone line that people could ring to discuss and report bad experiences in the health service.

Tracy Dean is a Vice President of Press For Change. In this interview with Christine Burns following the annual SOGIAG stakeholder meeting, she talks about how things have improved in recent years and about some of the things that still need to change.

	Jamison Green

Jamison - James - Green is an internationally respected leader within the US Transgender movement and beyond. A powerful speaker and compelling writer, he is an acknowledged inspiration to many - trans and non-trans alike. He is the current chairman of the board of Gender Education and Advocacy Inc. (GEA), and a board member of both the Transgender Law and Policy Institute and the World Professional Association for Transgender Heath (formerly the Harry Benjamin society). In addition he is also a member of the Human Rights Campaign’s Business Council, a board member of the Equality Project, and an advisory member of the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE). Before these appointments he was the leader of FTM International Inc from March 1991 till August 1999. Christine Burns caught up with James when he took part in the June 2007 Trans With Pride conference in London. During a break for lunch the two activists took a walk in the sun outside in the sun and Christine asked James for his perspectives on how trans activism differs on the opposite sides of the Atlantic.

• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamison_Green
• www.jamisongreen.com/

Search for books by Jamison Green

	Kate Bornstein

Kate Bornstein is an author, playwright, performance artist and activist. Her books are taught in over 120 colleges and universities around the world and she has performed her work live on college campuses, in cinemas and theatres across the USA, Canada and parts of Britain, Germany and Austria. She is currently touring colleges, youth conferences and high schools, leading workshops on sex, gender and alternatives to teen suicide. Christine Burns sat down for a chat with Kate during a break in proceedings at the 2007 Trans With Pride conference where she began by asking her how she had started out.

• www.hellocruelworld.net/
• www.katebornstein.com/KatePages/indexkb.htm

Search for books by Kate Bornstein

	Joan Roughgarden

Professor Joan Roughgarden is no ordinary biologist - and no ordinary trans woman either - though it is surpringly common these days to encounter high academic achievers within the world wide community of gender variant, transgender and transsexual people. Nowadays Joan is most famous for her 2004 book “Evolution’s Rainbow” - an academic work, written in a language accessible to the public, which challenges Darwin’s theory of Sexual Selection. Her latest book, “Evolution and Christian Faith: Reflections of an Evolutionary Biologist”, published in 2006, shows that her willingness to take on controversial subjects is, if anything, stronger and more confident, despite the inevitable way in which her critics have responded to the first. Joan transitioned in 1998 at the age of 52. At that time she had already been teaching at Stanford for over a quarter of a century and had three books and over 100 academic articles and papers to her name. She owes her ability to continue through that transition in her life to no less a figure than Condoleeza Rice - now US Secretary of State and arguably one of the most powerful women in the World. It’s an encounter that Joan describes in the interview she agreed to give when she met Christine at the University of East Anglia.

• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Roughgarden
• www.stanford.edu/group/roughlab/rough.html

Search for books by Joan Roughgarden

	Christine Burns

The Transgender 2007 Conference took place at the University of East Anglia during the weekend of 16th-17thJune, and drew many speakers to talk about the historical and contemporary issues concerning trans people’s lives. Christine Burns began her presentation on present day issues with a recap of events spanning almost eighty years - from Lily Elbe to the Department of Health’s Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Advisory Group (SOGIAG), pointing clearly to things that still need to change.

With over 30 years of close involvement with the trans community, a decade and a half as an academic, honours, awards and international recognition as a rights campaigner, the public face of Professor Stephen Whittle OBE is well documented. Yet surprisingly little is known by most people about the private life of this immensely committed family man, in a loving relationship that’s matured for three decades and which has brought him four remarkable children. In this intimately biographical interview Christine Burns obtains a candid personal account of Stephen’s background - his childhood, transition, studying law, being an activist, marriage to Sarah, Multiple Sclerosis and his hopes for the future.

• Search for books by Stephen Whittle

	Christine Burns

Pride London 2007 sponsored a one day conference in June, organised by Transfabulous. The event, attended by over 100 people, drew international as well as UK trans activists together to spend time working actively on issues connected with health, the workplace, visibility, safety, privacy, families, friends and lovers.

Christine began her keynote address by reflecting on how the world had changed in 30 years and the way in which both trans people and the campaign challenges had evolved in the light of legislative changes achieved in the last decade. She reflected on each of the themes for the conference and urged people to strive for quality as a mark of their growing sense of worth. Tongue in cheek, she also offered a new way of describing people who aren’t as colourfully diverse as ourselves.

	Christine Burns

In October 2007 the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) organised a heavily subscribed conference in Manchester. Entitled “Coming Out With the Goods: Care Services for LGBT People”. The conference began with keynote addresses from the Commission’s Chief Inspector (Paul Snell), Director of Regional Operations and Service Development for Age Concern England, Heléna Herklots, and Christine Burns.

In this recording of Christine’s contribution she is introduced by David Pennells, Chair of the CSCI LGBT Workers’ Group. Chris Wroe, Vice Chair, is also heard at the end of the recording, stressing the importance of trans issues.

For more about this conference see: http://www.csci.org.uk/about_us/news/conference_on_care_services_fo.aspx

For a transcript of Christine’s speech see: http://www.csci.org.uk/docs/LGBT_conference_christine_burns.doc

In the summer of 2007, during the course of the second LGBT Health Summit in Manchester, Christine volunteered to step out of her normal comfort zone as a trans rights speaker and try her hand as a stand-up entertainer instead. Armed with her book of poems, penned over the course of the past 30 years, she stepped up to the floor mic in Canal Street’s noisy and bustling “Taurus” Bar and invited the drinkers and revellers to a lesson in how to fish for birds.

	Mark Rees

Press for Change founder Mark Rees is a quintessentially charming man whose greatest misfortune, perhaps, was to have been born in 1942 with a female body. The story of Mark’s dawning realisation of his masculine identity, and the struggle to express that, is told through his original autobiography, “Dear Sir or Madam”, which will shortly be republished in a greatly revised form.

Mark’s contributions to trans history in Britain are two-fold. In the mid 1980’s he was the first transsexual person to pursue a case all the way to the European Court of Human Rights for the right to change his birth certificate. He lost. Undaunted he carried on, looking for support and, in 1992, was one of the founders who gathered in the Westminster café where Press for Change was born.

Persuading Mark to be interviewed wasn’t easy at first; he is modest about the importance of his own role in trans history. We eventually met in the coffee shop of the Friends Meeting House, on Euston Road in London. Squeezing ourselves into a quiet corner beside the web surfers, I began by asking him about his childhood.