After David Tennant wore a trans rights t-shirt, sales of the clothing line soared, raising thousands of dollars to fund scholarships for young gender non-conforming people.
The Doctor Who star’s wife Georgia posted an Instagram carousel of their family at a school Pride event. In the pictures, David Tennant wears a t-shirt with the words “you will have to go through me” in the colours of the trans flag.
The top is from the Canadian website Stevie Safe Spaces, which sells hats, hoodies, shirts and stickers with slogans supporting the trans community.
A total of $5 from each purchase goes towards the Greyson Jones Memorial Scholarship, which provides bursaries to help gender non-conforming people go to college in Ontario, Canada.
The website’s owner, Stevie Brocksom, shared on social media that following the viral post they sold $32,000 (£25,300) of clothing and stickers.
Brocksom’s husband had posted a package of the t-shirts to a fanmail address for David Tennant that they had found online. Tennant is known for his advocacy for the LGBTQ+ community. He won the Celebrity Ally award at the British LGBT Awards on Friday 21 June, and wore a t-shirt reading “leave trans kids alone you absolute freaks” to the premiere of series two of Good Omens last year.
Brocksom told Yahoo Canada that they were very surprised by the attention the clothes were getting, saying: “I didn’t think it would go anywhere.”
To their surprise, Brocksom woke up one day with hundreds of orders. They shared on social media that 85 per cent of the t-shirts sold were the “you will have to go through me” design that Tennant wore. Brocksom has been struggling to keep up with orders, and has shipped their shirts to countries including the UK, the US, Australia and Japan. They plan to commemorate their success with a new tattoo.
Georgia Tennant’s Instagram post was flooded with appreciative comments. One Instagram user wrote: “As an unaccepted trans 20-year-old, David’s T shirt genuinely made me cry. Thank you for doing everything you do.”
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This morning, Rishi Sunak appeared to criticise David Tennant on X for his feud with the equalities minister Kemi Badenoch over trans rights.
During his acceptance speech at the British LGBT Awards, Tennant had said: “If I’m honest I’m a little depressed by the fact that acknowledging that everyone has the right to be who they want to be and live their life how they want to live it as long as they’re not hurting anyone else should merit any kind of special award or special mention – because it’s common sense, isn’t it?
“However, until we wake up and Kemi Badenoch doesn’t exist any more – I don’t wish ill of her, I just wish her to shut up – while we do live in this world, I am honoured to receive this.”
Badenoch responded on X that she “will not shut up”.
The prime minister wrote this morning that “freedom of speech is the most powerful feature of our democracy. If you’re calling for women to shut up and wishing they didn’t exist, you are the problem.”
