Interview with Christine Burns MBE

Christine Burns MBE is a trailblazing equalities specialist, beloved advocate, and pioneering voice in the fight for transgender rights in the United Kingdom. With a gentle but unwavering determination, Christine has spent decades shaping the landscape of legal protections and social acceptance for trans people. From her early years as a city IT consultant navigating the challenges of living stealth, to becoming vice president of the influential campaign group Press for Change, she has been at the heart of some of the UK’s most significant milestones in transgender equality. Christine’s extraordinary journey is beautifully chronicled in her memoir, Pressing Matters, where she tenderly recounts the long and often difficult path toward the Gender Recognition Act of 2004, an achievement that transformed countless lives by granting legal recognition to trans identities.

 

Her work has not only secured vital employment rights and healthcare access but has also humanized the fight for dignity and family recognition in law. Her life story is not only one of activism and legal triumph but also of profound courage, compassion, and hope. Christine’s wisdom and warmth shine through as she reflects on the importance of history, the strength found in community, and the ongoing struggle for true equality. She is a beloved mentor, a steadfast friend, and a beacon of hope for generations of trans people and allies. It is with great admiration and respect that we welcome Christine Burns MBE to share her insights and experiences in this heartfelt interview.

 

Monika: It’s truly an honor today to welcome Christine Burns MBE, a renowned British equalities specialist and former vice president of Press for Change. Christine has been recognized for her outstanding influence, ranked 35th in 2011 and 42nd in 2012 on The Independent on Sunday’s Pink List of influential LGBT figures in the UK, and even served as a judge in 2013. She’s also the author of several important works, including the acclaimed textbook Making Equality Work and her recent memoir, Pressing Matters (Vol 1). Hello Christine, and thank you so much for joining us!

Christine: Thank you so much, Monika, for including me in your incredible series of interviews, I’m genuinely honored and thrilled to be part of it!

Monika: Your recently published memoir Pressing Matters (Vol 1) offers an insightful look into your life and the history of transgender activism, with a particular focus on the journey toward the Gender Recognition Act. Could you explain why this legislation was such a milestone for the transgender community in the UK, and what broader impact it had beyond just the law itself?

Christine: “Pressing Matters” is a history of trans activism in the United Kingdom. It is a history that I was initially reluctant to write, as I wasn’t sure whether I was the right person to tell such a story. I was very close to the action during a phenomenal period of advancement in trans rights around the world. As such, I thought I might have been too close to provide an objective perspective on such an important history.

"Pressing Matters" vol. 1 (2014) - Amazon.

Monika: What made you eventually decide to write this history yourself?

Christine: My ideal scenario is that such a history ought to be written by others, with the perspective that comes from both physical distance and the passage of time. However, despite efforts to encourage that over the last few years, I could see that such a history wasn’t going to get written unless someone took the first step.

Monika: Why do you think it’s so important that this history is documented?

Christine: At the same time, I think such a history is absolutely crucial, especially as a majority of those leading trans activism in the UK now are quite young and would not otherwise understand how the circumstances they find themselves in came about. Volume 1, which I’ve just published, covers the background to how trans people found themselves so marginalized, and how a handful of people found each other and began working to challenge that situation.

Monika: You mentioned the Gender Recognition Act, but it appears that this pivotal legislation comes later in your story?

Christine: You mention the Gender Recognition Act, which doesn’t happen until the back end of volume 2 (yet to be written). That in itself underlines how such a change is hard and takes a long time. And what we were working towards wasn’t just that piece of legislation. In fact, we achieved a number of equally important outcomes: we secured employment protection for all European Community trans people in 1996 through the clarification of the Equal Treatment Directive in the European Court of Justice; we secured the right to appropriate treatment for UK trans people on the National Health Service; we got the European Court of Human Rights to recognize that a trans person’s partnership with a cis-gender person (and the children they have by whatever means) constitute “family life” in the eyes of the law; and then, yes, we achieved the landmark Gender Recognition Act in 2004.

Monika: How should we understand the significance of the Gender Recognition Act in the wider context of trans rights?

Christine: So, if that’s a long answer to your question, it is because the achievement of the GRA has to be seen in that context. It wasn’t a magic bullet solution to trans people’s issues. Indeed, if you take all those legal and legislative advances together, they still don’t solve everything. People are still discriminated against. It’s just that discrimination became unlawful and, gradually as a result, less socially acceptable. Within that context, however, a process to recognize trans people for who they are inside, “for all purposes” as the law says, is vitally important to personal integrity. It is so fundamental, so much taken for granted by everyone else, that the law had never even recognized the need for it before. For most people, it is unthinkable that their gender should ever be challenged; hence, the law never needed to define it for the majority.

Monika: Have you ever reflected on what it might be like if cis-gender people had to experience the challenges trans people face regarding gender recognition?
Christine: I’ve sometimes wondered what the world would be like if the great mass of cis-gender people were deprived of that privilege , if they had to think about and fight for it as we’ve needed to do. So the Gender Recognition Act is a piece of equality legislation, in that it exists to produce the same outcome for trans people as the rest take for granted.

Monika: You earned first-class honors in computer science in 1975 and completed your master’s degree in 1977, after which you worked as a city IT consultant and were active as a Tory supporter. During this period, you were still living stealth, and the transgender community in Britain had virtually no legal protections, privacy rights, or recognition of family relationships. Could you describe what life was like for trans people in that era, and how those conditions shaped your experience?

Christine: That’s right. And again, I think it is hard for cis-gender people to fully grasp that, since those are things they take so much for granted that they often feel free to abuse them. If you take the right to marry someone for granted, for instance, then you see pop stars making a mockery of what should be a way of formalizing an important bond between two people. If you take it for granted that people can’t just dismiss you if they disapprove of your medical needs or history, then you’re not going to fully understand just how vital that redress is, and how much people had to fight to secure it.

 

Proud2Be Video (YouTube)

 

Monika: Could you elaborate on what basic necessities and rights were out of reach for trans people during that time?

Christine: Some things are vital to survival, food and shelter are among the most fundamental human needs. In the 1970s, 80s, and early 90s, trans people couldn’t secure those things for themselves. If you didn’t “pass,” then people would simply not employ you. And if you did “pass,” then the ability to hold on to your job depended in many cases on people not being aware of your past. There was a culture of impunity, though. Trans people lived in a world where they could be “outed” at any time. The consequences of such exposure (which remain serious for many today) could involve immediate loss of your job and hence your ability to pay the gas and electricity bill, the rent, and put food on the table.

Monika: The 1980s are often seen as a quiet period for the transgender movement in the UK, with no major legal victories. How accurate is that perception, and were there any significant moments or individuals during that decade who helped set the stage for future progress?

Christine: Yes and no. As I explain in my new book, the position of trans people in Britain from the early 70s was so dire that nobody was in any position to organize beyond providing community support for each other. That is, there were groups where people could meet and be supported by their peers in transitioning, finding hormones, surgeons, etc. In other words, there were sympathetic ears and sometimes practical help if you were lucky enough to find someone willing to take you under their wing. I don’t think anyone at that time had any idea how they would go about changing the status quo, though. It just looked too daunting. Where would you start?

Monika: Was there anyone who did try to challenge the system despite these obstacles?

Christine: One individual did start. A trans man called Mark Rees challenged the government on two grounds: firstly, the rule that prevented him from changing his birth certificate; secondly, the ability to marry (in his case) as a man. Mark’s journey through the legal system was long and arduous. He had to exhaust all the possibilities in the domestic courts before he could apply for his case to be considered by the European Court of Human Rights. As it happens, he lost in the end; however, the crucial thing was that he put the issues on the table for lawyers and civil rights activists to think about. That’s why I say “Yes and No,” because Mark’s action was a successful failure. His dogged determination laid the foundations for what we then went on to achieve.

Monika: The first harbinger of success loomed out in 1992 when the Press for Change was established. How did you get involved with them?

Christine: Ah, well … that’s an entire chapter of my new book. I never started out imagining that I would become an activist - and I certainly never thought it would go on to be such a big part of my life.

There was no single defining moment to being involved. It was a progression over a couple of years, helped along by the mentoring of a wonderful woman who saw (presumably) something in me. She introduced me to knowledge that I didn’t know existed. Through finding that knowledge I could see there was a way to achieving success, even though I had no idea how complicated it would be. Alice Purnell’s influence on my life was so important that I’ve dedicated volume 1 of the memoir to her.

 

Ticket to the Edge of Despair (YouTube)

 
Monika: In 1995, you made the bold decision to come out to your local Conservative Party leadership so that you could campaign more openly. What kind of response did you receive, was it the breakthrough you hoped for? 

Christine: Again I feel like saying that you need to read the book to find out. It was certainly, let’s say, “interesting”! People have a dim view of Tories. Some of it is well deserved. But I would always caution people to be wary of one-dimensional images of any group of people (that applies to trans people too, of course!). During my work, I have had the opportunity to study the experiences of people coming out in the Labour Party as well. It may sound counterintuitive, but I think my colleagues in the Tory Party at that time were amazing, not everyone, but the majority. And the Tories, as a party of government, were surprisingly open to the question of whether to provide for legal recognition. It’s just that I think it would have taken longer, would have been more politicized, and hence less helpful legislation if they had led on it. 

Monika: You've once joked that admitting you were a Conservative was more embarrassing than coming out as a trans woman. What inspired that line, and does it still hold true?

Christine: Yes. It has always been a good crowd-pleaser. It always gets the laugh! There was a time (after David Cameron took over leadership of the party) when I thought the joke might stop being funny. For a time it did look like he was on course to dismantle the image of the Tories as the “nasty party”. They have slipped back now, of course, so the joke still gets a belly laugh because it taps into a very real perception about the party whilst implicitly acknowledging an uncomfortable truth about how members of my audiences know trans people are still regarded. I think the “nasty party” label will carry on sticking to the Tories, but I will know for sure when the general social image of trans people has changed, because then the joke will no longer make sense.
Monika: Looking back, were there any transgender figures who inspired you or offered a sense of direction during your early years?

Christine: I don’t think there were many trans role models around at that time, because trans people were mostly so closeted. I certainly admired some of my colleagues. I have immense admiration (and love) for both Mark Rees and Alice Purnell, both of whom I’ve mentioned above. When I was younger, in the mid-1970s, I suppose you could say that the travel writer Jan Morris was a role model of sorts. Her book Conundrum came out in 1974 when I was first seriously wondering about how to transition. Her text provided a sort of road map for that.

Monika: Jan Morris’s Conundrum was widely read at the time. Did her story resonate with you personally, or did it feel distant from your own experience? 

Christine: It painted a picture of someone quite unlike me and a really exceptional journey beyond any imagining. I am so pleased that young people these days have so many good role models, not just of their own age, but people who they can see have been around for entire (and happy) lifetimes. In the book, I talk about meeting some of the parents who set up the “Mermaids” support group for young people. I remember how they scrutinized me so closely because they could see how their children might be “today” but wondered what sort of life they might have in middle and older age. Parents worry about that. They know they won’t be around in a few years. Feeling confident about their children’s transition includes the need to visualize a whole life.

 

Spare a tear for the Altruist (YouTube)

 
Monika: You launched the Press for Change website in December 1995, embedding it within your personal homepage. At the time, it was the first serious campaign site for transgender rights in the UK. How did digital technology, still in its infancy, help shape the movement?

Christine: Yes, we were amazingly lucky that computer networking and home computers came along in an affordable form at exactly the right time. I know everyone takes computers and smartphones and social networking completely for granted today. However, none of that was around in the mid-90s. And it was a problem for us in creating any sort of campaign at first. People were so thin on the ground, geographically isolated. Sending out a newsletter required mass printing and then envelope stuffing and postage. We couldn’t do anything on a rapid timescale. The campaign only worked at all because some of us lived within a few miles of each other. Getting people online and writing a whole new set of rules for how to campaign in that way was transformational. It meant we were able to take officials completely by surprise with the effectiveness of mass action as if from nowhere.
Monika: In 1996, Press for Change achieved a groundbreaking legal victory when your legal team, led by Stephen Whittle, won the P vs S and Cornwall County Council case at the European Court of Justice. How significant was this win for the transgender community?

Christine: That’s right. And it is important not to underestimate how important that victory was on so many different planes. Firstly, as I’ve already said, employment rights are fundamental to people’s security. Today there are thousands of “out” trans people doing bits of personal or collective activism on social media. That has happened because we made it possible to be secure in being “out.” Without that employment protection, however, people would still be reluctant for others to know about their trans background. And invisible communities find it almost impossible to secure wider rights.

Monika: Beyond the UK, what kind of international impact did that ruling have?

Christine: Our win in this case wasn’t just restricted to the UK. It applied straight away across the European Union without necessarily requiring specific domestic legislation. In order to join the European Community, states have to ensure that their laws are interpreted in ways that are compatible with the laws of the Community. This means that, from the point when the European Court of Justice confirmed that employment discrimination against transsexual people was discrimination on the grounds of sex, anyone in any of the community states could cite that in a court or tribunal considering their unfair dismissal or harassment. It was an enormous win.

END OF PART 1

PART 2

 

All photos: courtesy of Christine Burns.

© 2014 - Monika Kowalska

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