Ad Age is marking Pride Month 2023 with our Honoring Creative Excellence package. (Read the introduction here.) This week, our guest editor is Sandy Greenberg, co-founder and co-CEO of independent agency Terri & Sandy. Here, Greenberg writes about the creation of the world’s first registry of transgender-affirming barbershops and salons.

My story begins with love.

The love of Xavier Cruz, the owner of Barba grooming salon in New York City, and JP Gomez, his husband, who is a creative director at Terri & Sandy. 

Their love, which is kind, exuberant and ridiculously adorable, must also have been contagious. Because it sparked a passion in our agency to team up with Barba to give back to the LGBTQIA+ community in Chelsea that the salon serves.

It all began in 2017, when stories permeated the news about the prejudice the transgender community was facing when getting a simple haircut. Creative directors JP Gomez and Sam Mazur, along with a team of writers and art directors, practically tackled our co-founder Terri Meyer and me, saying, “We have an idea for Barba!”

They started their pitch by reading the newspaper headlines:

“A barbershop refused to give a trans man a haircut because they said he was a woman.” 

“A Long Island barbershop denied service to a transgender teen, saying he was ‘not a real man.’”

“Trans woman says she is so afraid to go into a salon, she has never let anyone touch her hair.”

Next, they revealed their concept: to introduce the world’s first registry of transgender-affirming barbershops and salons in celebration of Pride. Wait—gulp—Pride was four weeks away.

“It takes a village to raise a child,” according to the African proverb. Well, let me tell you, it takes a village to raise an idea. Strands for Trans, along with the symbol for the movement—a pink, white and blue barber pole inspired by the colors of the trans flag—launched on June 15, 2017.

In celebration, Xavier, the master stylist himself, created a beautiful Strands for Trans (S4T) hair color that individuals could flaunt for Pride.

I still remember Xavier and JP calling me the Saturday before Pride, screaming, “Guess who’s at Barba getting his hair colored? Marc Jacobs!”

Thanks to Marc’s support, the press began to show us a little love. Strands for Trans was featured in Allure, Fashionista and Refinery29. We made multiple lists of “Best of Pride” campaigns. Within two weeks, our digital registry had signups in every single state—even the red ones.

Since then, we’ve continued to grow Strands for Trans every year. In 2022, when historic levels of anti-trans legislation hit the dockets, Billy Porter brought his fierce, feisty, fashionable self to the movement. There are now over 7,500 registered hair havens in 29 countries across six continents, including Kenya, Kazakhstan, India, Taiwan, New Zealand and Indonesia. Some of these nations have zero legal protections in place regarding discrimination toward the LGBTQIA+ community. Some even criminalize being LGBTQIA+.

Then this past March, S4T became an official 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, pushing education, policy and change for this marginalized community.

In honor of the hundreds of thousands of lives impacted by Strands for Trans, Barba and Terri & Sandy won Fast Company’s 2023 World Changing Ideas Award.

#LoveForTheWin.