2021 has become the deadliest year for Trans people on record. The Trans community is being increasingly targeted, with transphobia and hate coming from both the media as well as from right-wing groups, both on and offline. More recently, the LGB Alliance has called for the T to be removed from LGBTQ+.

Publisher, Gay Times, and Grey London have launched an Amplifund campaign, Incomplete Without the T, to stand in solidarity and help to raise visibility and awareness around Trans issues during Trans Awareness Week.

The idea is simple. Grey London has removed the letter “T” from a range of different texts and communications – showing that when you erase a letter from any word, in any language, you remove both the comprehension and the unity behind it – and the same is true when you remove the T from LGBTQ+.

The campaign was launched to a live audience during Trans Awareness Week at Gay Times Honours, with a powerful – and incoherent – speech was heard in front of an audience of over one thousand LGBTQ+ community members and allies – including trailblazers and celebrities such as Ellie Goulding, Jade Thirlwall (Little Mix), Will Young and Rina Sawayama. Tag Warner chief executive officer of Gay Times, introduced the campaign video and invited the audience to start using #WithTheT across social media to demonstrate their support.

Trans rights are vital all year round, and so to emphasise the fact that these issues go beyond a designated week or day, the campaign will continue with OOH advertising and social posts across Gay Times channels, as well as through queer influencers and allies showing their support online.

Future executions focusing on getting other media outlets, brands and charities involved, with the aim to show how we as a global community are incomplete without our Trans brothers and sisters – without the T.

Tag Warner commented, “We created Amplifund in partnership with the award-winning LGBTQ+ human rights charity GiveOut to amplify queer voices to global audiences and support LGBTQ+ activists around the world in their campaigning and media work. This new campaign with Grey London, launched in person at Gay Times Honours to an audience of over one thousand members of our queer community and allies, highlights the importance of ‘the T’ in LGBTQ+. With 2021 being the deadliest year on record for Trans people, it is more important than ever for us as a business, and as a community, to stand with our Trans brothers and sisters and reinforce the message – we are incomplete without the T.”

Laura Jordan Bambach, president and chief creative officer UK at Grey, added, “Trans people have led the way in LGBTQ+ rights from the Stonewall riots to our own rallies and direct actions here in the UK. To be Trans today is to be faced with even more discrimination, hate and the potential for violence than many other areas of our community. So, it’s fundamentally important that we are never LGB without the T and we stand together to protect the hard-earned rights and acceptance we have, and those still to fight for. We’re incredibly proud to have launched this campaign with Gay Times at this vital time in our collective history.”

Grey creatives, Chaz Mather and Lucy Jones, stated, “We just couldn’t understand why anyone would want to remove the T from an acronym that stands for unity and equality, especially when Transgender people have played such an important role in LGBTQ+ history and such an important part of the queer community. We created this campaign to remind people of that fact. It’s something we both feel really passionate about.”

Credits:

Client: Gay Times Amplifund
Chief Executive Officer: Tag Warner
Executive Creative Director: Josh Fletcher
Group Marketing & Communications Manager: Jared Fleming

Agency: Grey London
President & Chief Creative Officer: Laura Jordan Bambach
Executive Creative Director: Celeste Dalairac 
Head of Art: Costanza Rossi
Senior Copywriter: Lucy Jones
Senior Art Director: Chaz Mather
Creative Operations: James McNichol
Studio and Design Manager:  Shanie Adams
SVP, Managing Partner: Mohamed Kahwaji
Chief Strategy Officer: Raquel Chicourel
Joint Head of Strategy: Annalisa Roy
Planning Director: Thomas Bunnell 
Agency Producer: Sam Henshaw
Head of Design: Sunir Patel 
Senior Art Designers: Steve Price, Kit Suman, Tyrone Zall & Kenny Brannon