A Code of Conduct for Press For Change Campaigners
June 1999
1. Press for Change is a political lobbying and educational organisation, which campaigns to achieve equal civil rights and liberties for all transsexual and transgender people in the U.K. through legislation and social change.
2. Press for Change is working for EQUALITY and RESPECT - real equality and real respect for real people, not for invisibility and pretending to be the something we are not in order to gain acceptance.
3. Press for Change is INCLUSIVE - we are working for ALL trans people, interpreted in the broadest sense, not just for an elite of post-operative transsexual people. We are always very careful to act so that in improving the rights of one group, we don’t damage those of another.
4. Press for Change upholds the right of every individual to SELF DEFINITION and SELF DETERMINATION - everyone has the right to decide for themselves who they are and in what way they wish to resolve their own gender conflicts. There is no single best solution for everyone at all times.
5. Press for Change is firmly NON-BUREAUCRATIC - we work by ENABLING people to campaign for their own civil rights, keep central control to a minimum and welcome a diversity of views, abilities, initiatives and solutions.
6. Press for Change believes we have no need to be ashamed of what we are - we have PRIDE in our unique and valuable experience, and acknowledge our history and international status as a community. Press for Change Vice Presidents and many other campaigners are showing by example that it is possible to be “out” - in the workplace, with family, friends and lovers, in business, in politics and even (when necessary) in the media. But we never put pressure on an individual to be more “out” than s/he feels comfortable with - it has to be a personal choice.
7. Press for Change works by MAKING FRIENDS, even with our enemies, and by building links and relationships with all other groups and sectors of society. We challenge injustice and prejudice, but do not condemn individuals - we always do our best to win people over through education, and even when this fails we do not stoop to personal abuse or aggression.
8. Press for Change RESPECTS all other people and we never attack other minority groups to make ourselves look better or more mainstream - for example gay or lesbian people, intersex people, or transvestite people.