Yana Calou, Director of Advocacy Yana Calou (they/them) is a genderqueer Brazilian American organizer who joined the Trans Lifeline team in 2020 to ensure that solutions to systems affecting trans people are led by us. Yana leads Trans Lifeline’s Advocacy department and founded the #SafeHotlines campaign. Yana’s 18 years of experience as a media activist and labor organizer informs their campaign work, centering embodiment and lived experiences in organizing and healing work. Yana is grateful for their mentorship in queer studies, history, worker, abolitionist, racial, and media justice movements, and has learned from roles at CLAGS Center for LGBTQ Studies, Coworker.org, the Retail Action Project, Women’s Media Center, GLAAD, and more. Yana studies somatic therapy and co-facilitates a peer-led trans & nonbinary psychedelic integration group. Yana splits their time between Brooklyn and New Mexico where they enjoy poems, pottery, pointy-nosed dogs, plants, and pie.