Is there a way to get only the outlines of a shape to cut through what is behind it?

[bluebeary45]

This art will be printed on a gray tshirt in only one color, black. I'm trying to figure out how I can show the outlines of the people, without having an outline on the shape. In the image on the right, each person is outlined in white. In the image on the left, they are not outlined. I'm trying to get the outlines to cut through so that whatever color background is behind the art, would show up as the outlines of the people...does that make sense? I started to use the Trim pathfinder tool to cut the shape behind but it got all weird.

[Monika Gause]

Select all the people (only the people with white strokes)

In the appearance panel open the attributes of the white stroke and set its opacity to 0% (only the opacity of the stroke). The stroke will then vanish.

Select the heart and all the people.

Group all

In the transparency panel check the option "Knockout group". You might need to show options for that.

Do you need the outlines of that for plotting?

In that case you will now need to flatten transparency. Check "Outline strokes"

After that delete everything but the black shapes.