(Last updated January 2025)

General

Trans Lifeline (“Trans Lifeline,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) is a 501(c)(3) trans-led nonprofit organization with a mission is to connect trans people to the community, support, and resources they need to survive and thrive through operation of our Services (“Services”):

Our peer support Hotline, which provides peer support for trans and trans questioning people via call and text, in English and Spanish (“Hotline”).
Our Microgrants programs, which provide financial assistance for trans people via low-barrier funds and logistic support (“Microgrants”).
Our Website, which provides information and resources for the benefit of trans people and their allies (“Website”).
Receipt of monetary donations, which fund our operations and support our mission (“Donations”).

This page contains our combined Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, which describes the conditions for use of our Services and how we collect, store, protect, and use the data generated by our Services (“Terms” and “Privacy Policy”).

By using or attempting to use our Services, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy. You also expressly agree that the laws of any applicable jurisdiction do not prohibit you from using our Services. You may not use or attempt to use our Services for any unlawful purpose. You release Trans Lifeline and our employees, volunteers, representatives, and related agents from any liability for using our Services or the unavailability of our Services; including from claims of negligence, personal injury, illness, death, or economic loss—this includes whether you choose to pursue informed consent active rescue via our Hotline. While we use secure platforms for our Services, we do not guarantee, represent, or warrant that your use of our Services will not expose you to data breach. You are assuming the risk of your information being potentially breached and you are holding Trans Lifeline harmless from any liability arising out of such data breach.

If you do not agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy, please do not use or attempt to use our Services.

We reserve the right to make changes to our Terms or Privacy Policy at any time. Any updates made to our Terms and Privacy Policy will be effective immediately unless otherwise described. You will still be bound by our Terms and Privacy Policy as they existed when you last used our Services. Please check back from time to time to ensure you are aware of any updates or changes.

Hotline

Description of Service – Hotline

Our Hotline provides peer support for trans and trans questioning people via call and text, in English and Spanish. When you contact our Hotline, you will be connected to a trans operator trained to offer crisis assistance and community resources. We do not offer professional health or legal services through our Hotline.

Our Hotline is anonymous for both help-seekers and operators. This means our operators are unable to see your phone number and you are unable to access our operators’ phone numbers. We will not require you to provide personally identifying information; including name, phone number, location, or demographic information; and our operators will not disclose personally identifying information of their own.

Unlike many crisis lines, we will never call 911, the police, or other emergency services on your behalf unless we obtain your explicit, informed consent on the Hotline. We do not use geolocation tools or call tracing on our Hotline, so we cannot accurately identify your location. This means we can only send emergency services to you if you provide us with your exact location.

Click here to learn more about our position against non-consensual interventions.

Your use of the Hotline is subject to the following rules:

Do not take actions against the proper operation of Trans Lifeline and our Services
Do not make threats, prank calls or texts, including “swatting”
Do not harass or attempt to identify an operator
Do not use hate speech
Do not start more than one phone call or text conversation with us at a time
Do not disclose your phone number by speaking it aloud on a Hotline call or sending it in a message on a Hotline text conversation

We reserve the right to end your use of our Hotline at any time. Especially if any of these above rules are violated, you may be subjected to a ban, which will block you from accessing our Hotline. Bans cannot be appealed, but may be removed at our discretion.

Description of Service – Hotline

Click here to learn more about our position against non-consensual interventions.

Your use of the Hotline is subject to the following rules:

Do not take actions against the proper operation of Trans Lifeline and our Services
Do not make threats, prank calls or texts, including “swatting”
Do not harass or attempt to identify an operator
Do not use hate speech
Do not start more than one phone call or text conversation with us at a time
Do not disclose your phone number by speaking it aloud on a Hotline call or sending it in a message on a Hotline text conversation

Information Privacy – Hotline

Your Phone Number

When you contact the Hotline, we automatically collect your phone number. Your phone number is not visible to your operator. Your phone number is only accessible to our tech staff. We do not use caller ID, geolocation services, or call tracing.

Your Phone Call or Text Messages

When you call the Hotline, we collect an audio recording of the call from the moment of caller-operator connection to the moment of call termination. When you text the Hotline, we collect a text log of the conversation from the first message sent to us to the automatic message sent from us stating that the conversation has been ended by the operator. These audio recordings and text logs are encrypted and are only accessible to our staff and operators. They are deleted after 90 days, proceeding which they are no longer accessible by us.

By messaging our Hotline number, you are consenting to receive message replies from us. We will never initiate a text conversation with you; we will only respond to messages first sent by you.

If at any time you would like to stop receiving messages from us, message “STOP” in a single message to us, or use any other standard opt-out keyword, such as STOPALL, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END, or QUIT. If you chose to opt-out of messages, we may not send additional messages to you until you message us again.

Your Email Address

You may use the Hotline to request resources to be emailed to you. We may ask for an email address to send specific resources to, but you are under no obligation to provide one. The resource email you receive will be sent from a no-reply email address associated with Trans Lifeline, and may be sent during or after your use of the Hotline.

Resource emails sent by us may contain links to third-party sites, which are subject to their own terms of service and privacy policies.

Informed Consent Active Rescue

We do not perform nonconsensual intervention via our Hotline. We will not call any emergency service on your behalf, nor will we provide your information to an emergency service during or after your use of the Hotline, unless we obtain your explicit, informed consent on the Hotline.

If you explicitly instruct or ask us to call an emergency service on your behalf, we will inform you of the potential risks of the intervention you are requesting, so that you can make an informed decision and give clear consent. We do not have any way of identifying your location when you use the Hotline, and we will not ask you for your location. This means we can only send emergency services to you if you provide us with your exact location.

Mandatory Reporting

While we do not perform nonconsensual intervention and sharing of your information with law enforcement via our Hotline, we may report any use of our Hotline that indicates credible threats or reports of abuse or neglect of minors or vulnerable dependent adults to comply with laws that may apply to our operators across the United States and Canada.

Because our services are anonymous, we may not have adequate identifying information to make a report. However, if you voluntarily disclose identifying information to us, these may be included in our report. When making reports to comply with these laws, we may be required to provide information you have shared with us such as your name, address, contact information, and further details pertaining to the particular threat or report of violence.

We will only provide call recordings and text logs when complying with a subpoena. Our vendor, Twilio, may also release this information to comply with a subpoena. Click here to see more information from Twilio.

Hotline Statistics

We may use information we collect via the Hotline in aggregated, anonymized statistics and metrics, for the purposes of helping us and others understand the operations and effects of our Hotline service and advocating against the use of nonconsensual intervention by crisis lines. These statistics and metrics may be shared with third parties or published publicly. Your name, phone number, other personal identifiers, and the individual content of call recordings or text logs will not be identified in these statistics and metrics.

Artificial Intelligence

We may use artificial intelligence (”AI”) technology to generate transcripts from recordings of Hotline calls and to redact sensitive information from transcripts. We do not use AI to perform predictive risk assessment, nor do we use AI as a substitute for trained quality assurance staff. We do not use an AI program that can recognize and generate text, images, or other original content in the manner of a large language model (LLM) or image generation AI. The data we collect is not used to train any external programs, AI or not. Our use of AI is for increasing accessible options for our operators to review calls and to protect your sensitive information.

Other Information

We will not require you to provide any personal information to us via the Hotline. However you may voluntarily provide other information to us during your use of the Hotline via a phone call or text conversation; which may include, but is not limited to, your name, location, employment information, medical information, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or disability status. We will also not use the Hotline obtain or attempt to obtain additional personal information about you besides what you voluntarily share with us during a Hotline phone call or text conversation.

Microgrants

Description of Service – Microgrants

Our Microgrants programs provide financial assistance via low-barrier funds and logistic support for trans people to pursue the following:

Correct names and gender markers on identifying legal documents
Fund gender-affirming hair removal
Access necessities during incarceration
Access housing and re-entry needs after release from incarceration

Currently our Microgrants programs are paused until further notice, as we are unable to distribute Microgrants at this time. Click here to learn more about the circumstances that led to this decision.

Information Privacy – Microgrants

If you applied in the past for a Name Change Microgrant, Gender Affirming Hair Removal (”GAHR”) Microgrant, Trans Migrant Grant, Commissary Microgrant, or Post-Release Microgrant, we may have collected any information necessary to process and fulfill the Microgrant, including your preferred name, legal name, demographic information, email address, phone number, age, whether or not you have a criminal record (self-reported), residential location, and financial information.

We securely store the information you may have submitted in your application and follow-up materials. Any personally identifiable information you may have shared with us was used for the purpose of processing your Microgrant application and fulfilling your Microgrant only.

We may have prompted you to provide additional information such as feedback on our Microgrants programs and other Services. We may use this information in aggregated, anonymized statistics and metrics, for the purposes of helping us and others understand the operations and effects of our Microgrants programs. Your personally identifiable information will not be identified in these statistics and metrics.

In 2021, we distributed Hormone Replacement Therapy (“HRT”) Microgrants through Folx Health. Folx Health and Trans Lifeline received names, addresses, genders, and basic race information from applicants. For more information, see Folx Health’s terms of service and privacy policy

Website

Description of Service – Website

Our Website is a community resource that provides and collects information in accordance with our principles.

Your use of the Website is subject to the following rules:

Do not take actions against the proper operation of Trans Lifeline and our Services
Do not make submissions to any form available on our Website with any content other than what is prompted
You may access the materials located within our Website for your personal, non-commercial use only. We maintain resources such as our Resource Library, ID Change Library, Hey I’m Trans, and other materials on our Website that you may download and use. Do not sell these materials, do not change or remove any element of these materials, and properly attribute any materials created by us to Trans Lifeline.

We reserve the right to end your use of our Website at any time by banning your internet protocol (”IP”) address from accessing our Website. Bans cannot be appealed, but may be removed at our discretion.

Information Privacy – Website

When you access the Website, information including your IP address and other identifying information associated with your browser, operating system, device, internet service provider (“ISP”), location, click data, and cookies may be automatically collected as a part of the operation and maintenance of our Website.

Some of this automatically collected information is also accessible by third parties. Our website contains links to and can be linked out from third-party services. These third-party services are subject to their own terms of service and privacy policies, which should be disclosed to you by those services when applicable. We will not share your data with these third parties for their own marketing purposes unrelated to our Services. We may use third parties to perform services on our behalf in association with our Website, such as collecting job applications, blocking malicious traffic to our Website, or sending newsletters.

If you opt in to our newsletter by filling out the form on our Website, you may receive emails. You may stop receiving these emails by clicking the link to unsubscribe included in every message.

You may also be prompted to provide personally identifiable information via forms such as our Contact Form and Feedback Form. We do not collect any information, automatically or through solicitation, to sell or otherwise use for any purposes other than promoting, providing, and improving our mission and our Services. We may use this information to better serve you and others who interact with our Website.

Information collected via our Crisis Callers’ Bill of Rights and our Survivor Stories form may be used in aggregated, anonymized statistics and metrics, and to guide research and research partnerships. This information may be collected and shared for the purpose of advocating against the use of nonconsensual intervention by crisis lines. These statistics and metrics may be shared with third parties or published publicly.

Our Website does not respond to Do Not Track signals.

Donations

Description of Service – Donations

We gratefully accept Donations through our Website, partnered donation platforms, and by mailed check.

Information Privacy – Donations

When you make a Donation, we may collect any information necessary to complete the Donation, including your preferred name, legal name, demographic information, email address, phone number, age, residential location, and financial information.

We do not collect any information in association with Donations to sell or otherwise use for any purposes other than promoting, providing, and improving our mission and our Services.

We partner with a number of third-party providers to collect Donations on behalf of Trans Lifeline. We may also use external service providers to process your payment. These third-party platforms are subject to their own terms of service and privacy policies, which should be disclosed to you by those services when applicable. We do not share our donor records with any third party except for the purposes of collecting Donations, completing taxes, analyzing giving patterns, making budget projections, and soliciting future Donations.

We may contact you to express our gratitude for your contribution to us. Our related communications to you may identify you by name, amount donated, and other information related to your Donation. Otherwise, all information shared with us in association with Donations, such as name, Donation amount, email address, and phone number are stored securely and are kept private.

Other

Trans Lifeline also operates on a number of social media platforms and hosts the Peer2Peer.Live Platform. Data collected on these platforms is kept separate from our Services and are not subject to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

Click here to read Peer2Peer.Live’s Values and Code of Conduct.

Click here to read Peer2Peer.Live’s Privacy Policy.

Click here to read Trans Lifeline’s Social Media Moderation Policy.

If you have any questions about our Terms or Service and Privacy Policy, you may contact us:

At our online contact form: https://translifeline.org/contact/
At our administrative phone line: (510) 771-1417
At our mailing address: 548 Market St., PMB 15337, San Francisco, CA 94104-5401