How Strands for Trans built a movement for transgender-friendly barbershops
Strands for Trans, a campaign that maps transgender-friendly barbershops and salons, launched five years ago as stories of trans people facing discrimination circulated.
Strands for Trans, a campaign that maps transgender-friendly barbershops and salons, launched five years ago as stories of trans people facing discrimination in these spaces surfaced online.
Now, amid a surge of anti-LGBTQ legislation, the organizers behind the campaign — including the owners of the gender-inclusive grooming salon Barba in New York and employees of the New York-based advertising agency Terri & Sandy — say businesses have been signing up at an accelerated pace over the last few weeks as a way to signal support for the transgender community.
“People are looking for ways to show how they are allies,” said JP Gomez, co-founder of Strands for Trans and the creative director at Terri & Sandy. He said these businesses want to voice their opposition to the legislation, “to help those people out there and say, ‘Hey, you’re still safe in my chair.’”
Strands for Trans.Courtesy of Terri & SandySo far this year, state lawmakers have proposed at least 238 bills that would limit the rights of LGBTQ Americans, with about half of them targeting transgender people specifically, according to an NBC News analysis of data from the American Civil Liberties Union and the LGBTQ advocacy group Freedom for All Americans
Today, the Strands for Trans map includes more than 7,000 businesses across all 50 states — even Florida and Texas, which have recently been at the center of heated debates over LGBTQ rights — and several countries, including the Netherlands, Finland and Australia.
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