Christine Burns

Christine Burns is a transsexual woman and was invited to join Press for Change shortly after the campaign’s formation in 1992. Being a Conservative Party Branch Secretary at the time, her initial specialization was to use her connections and letter writing skills to draw cabinet attention to the issues facing transsexual people. In 1995 she “came out” within her community to enable her to chair fringe meetings at the Labour and Conservative Party Conferences and, shortly after that, became a Vice President of the Campaign. She left the Conservative Party in 1997, although not for reasons connected with her trans status. Indeed, “coming out” inside the local party did little to affect her popularity as an organizer and activist. When the Internet began to become a widely available public resource in late 1995, Christine had a leading role in setting up the campaign’s web site and setting its original editorial objectives – but her main forte has been to write articles covering every aspect of the campaign and trans people’s issues, including a weekly topical essay series known affectionately as the “Sunday Sermon”. Over the course of ten years, Christine has written literally hundreds of articles, web site features and commentaries to help educate and mentor trans people as campaigners. These days she has now switched her emphasis to writing for a wider external audience, with many articles now published across a range of print media, and her focus is in specific areas such as Human Relations, Equal Opportunities and Diversity journals – educating the people responsible for employing and managing trans people at work. In her private life Christine has been a Business and IT Consultant for much of her career, rising to a senior level within one of the world’s largest Consultancy companies before taking a deliberate change of career direction in 2002. Her approach to mixing campaigning and career work is to be honest about both, but to keep them separate as far as possible. Christine nowadays lives near the center of Manchester and helps to manage a company which cares for people with Learning Disabilities and long term mental health problems. She lectures regularly and also runs a Diversity Consultancy, specializing in helping organizations to understand and accommodate trans recruits and staff. More about Christine Burns