Press for Change existed originally because of the diligence and work of the likes of Angela Clayton. She passed away several years ago.
There is a Guardian article here from 2013 about the formation of Press for Change described by Stephen Whittle & Christine Burns:
' Voices from the trans community: 'There will always be prejudice'
It's more than 50 years since the UK's first trans person was outed in the press. So how do members of the community think life has changed for them since?'
(extract)
"Whittle, who "transitioned" nearly 40 years ago, was one of three trans men and three trans women who did an unusual thing in 1992: they went to meet Liberal Democrat MP Alex Carlile in Westminster. The unusual element was not the meeting but the fact that they travelled together – at the time, trans people never dared to because it increased the likelihood that they would be spotted and abused. These six wanted to start a campaign group; Carlile advised them to avoid the word "transsexual". So, in Grandma Lee's teashop opposite Big Ben, an anodyne name, Press for Change, was chosen.
The 80s, remembers Whittle, had been "dreadful years". As soon as his trans status was discovered he would be sacked; it was the same for every trans person. At the job centre, the adviser would call out, "Miss Stephen Whittle". At his teacher-training medical, the doctor told him they couldn't have "his sort" in teaching. "It was very, very hard, not just on us but on the people we fell in love with and lived with. We felt like we could never, ever win this battle. All these years on, we have sort of won the battle." (continues)
The existence of someone like her in the public eye was a great comfort for [Christine] Burns. In the 90s, when she was chair of the Women's Supper Club of the local Conservative party association in Cheshire, she quietly joined Press for Change. Even then, the new activists dared not be openly trans. "The thing that held us back in the 1990s campaigning was that fear of being out," admits Burns. Eventually, she came out in 1995; she jokes that she realised she was more embarrassed to be a member of the Conservative party than openly transsexual.
Much of their campaigning remained on the quiet. The passage of the 2004 law to give trans people legal status was "remarkable," says Burns, because "the government was able to pass an entire act in parliament without anyone throwing a fit in the press". In popular culture, the activists became more forthcoming in their attempts to increase popular understanding of trans issues." (continues)
www.theguardian.com/society/2013/jan/22/voices-from-trans-community-prejudice
its worth reading the whole article as also includes James Barrett, Paris Lees & Sarah Brown, all of whom are influential