INCOMPLETE WITHOUT THE T by GAY TIMES Amplifund, a campaign to support the Trans Community

GAY TIMES and Grey London have launched Amplifund campaign – Incomplete Without the T – at GAY TIMES Honours during Trans Awareness Week in response to increased transphobia and hate in the global media.

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 have called for the T to be removed from LGBTQ+.

To stand in solidarity and help to raise visibility and awareness around Trans issues, Amplifund have launched a powerful new campaign: Incomplete without the T.

Created by Grey London, the idea of the campaign is to remove 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 speech where an incoherent voice-over was heard in front of an audience of over one thousand LGBTQ+ community members and allies – including a plethora of trailblazers and celebrities from Ellie Goulding, Jade Thirlwall (Little Mix), Will Young and Rina Sawayama. Tag Warner CEO, 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 emphasize the fact that these issues go beyond a designated week or day, a multi-platform campaign has been launched, including OOH advertising and social posts across GAY TIMES channels, as well as queer influencers and allies also getting involved and showing their support online.

The campaign will continue with 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, CEO GAY TIMES, said: “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 CCO 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.”

The creatives, Chaz Mather and Lucy Jones, said: ‘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

CEO: Tag Warner

Executive Creative Director: Josh Fletcher

Group Marketing & Communications Manager: Jared Fleming

Agency: Grey London

President and Chief Creative Officer: Laura Jordan Bambach

ECD: 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

CSO: 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