Press for Change, May 28 2006
Christine Burns from the UK organization Press for Change contacted me on Sunday night requesting that I give her an audio interview over the telephone. Well, I'd give Christine one of my organs if she needed it! As one of the founding members of Press for Change, she is hugely responsable for securing the British anti-discrimination legislation that now allows me to fight for my rights.
For more information on Press for Change, please visit their website at www.pfc.org.uk.
You can find the full recording of Christine's Interview here. Please note that this audio file is 8.5M in size, and is far too big to download if you are using a dial-up connection.
Christine's emailed announcement regarding the interview can be found below.
This audio recording and associated text © Copyright 2006 by Christine Burns for Press for Change.
Subject: UK: Exclusive - One on One Interview With Jessica Bussert [MP3 Audio]
To: 'Press for Change News Distribution'
By: Christine Burns
This is a bit of an experiment -- but one which may lead us into some exciting new ground if it's successful and popular.
Earlier today I recorded an exclusive interview with Jessica Bussert, the US-born IT professional who is now suing her employers, Hitachi Data Systems, for alleged employment discrimination following the start of her gender transition.
Jessica's story has been featured this weekend by several broadsheet newspapers. Guardian Legal Editor Clare Dyer broke the original story on Saturday, followed today by the Political Editor of the Independent on Sunday, Marie Woolfe. The Sunday Times also had a pop at the story too, unintentionally showcasing the very nastiness of attitudes towards trans people in the process. Other major titles now are also sniffing around, as you might expect when such large sums of money are at stake.
The Guardian and Independent features are both very good reports. Yet newspapers are always constrained by space and the imperative to condense a story down to the basics. Trans readers inevitably want more though, since there are always so many more questions we would like to ask.
I'm sorry to confess that my 36 minute interview with Jessica has an enormous technical flaw that didn't show up in the tests I ran beforehand -- there is a very strong hum throughout the recording, caused by all the equipment sitting close to the telephone lines and recording equipment in my office at home. That's a mistake I won't make again.
Nevertheless, I hope that doesn't detract from what Jessica has to say about her background, what brought her to the UK to transition, and what happened when she did.
The interview is 36 minutes long and downloads as an 8Mb MP3 file which you can either play on your PC or transfer to your MP3 player. If anyone out there has the technical know-how to filter out the mains hum then your help would be much appreciated.
Above all, however, do listen to Jessica's story in full. The events are probably going to be pored over at some length in future, as Jessica's former employers gear up to fight an expensive David and Goliath battle with one little trans woman who is just not going to go quietly into career oblivion. It's therefore important that everyone knows Jessica's story in the most authentic way it can be told - her own words.
Interview with Jessica Bussert (Time 36 mins. Size 8.2Mb. Format MP3)
http://www.plain-sense.co.uk/audio/bussert.mp3
Christine Burns
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