User:Dreamyshade/Trans Lifeline

Trans Lifeline

Mission

"That’s a number that the people behind Trans Lifeline (877-565-8860), a crisis hotline staffed entirely by transgender people, want to see decreased. “There are a ton of suicide hotlines. There’s no shortage of them,” says Greta Martela, a software engineer and president of the organization that went live this month. “But it’s really difficult to get a person who isn’t trans to understand what it’s like to be trans.”"

"Yesterday, we marked the sixteenth annual Transgender Day of Remembrance, focusing on the transgender and gender-nonconforming people taken by violence in the past year. On November 1st, an integral resource was launched to help trans people in crisis—the Trans Lifeline, a free crisis and suicide prevention hotline that is managed and staffed by volunteers who are themselves members of the trans community."

"Alcorn's death has prompted mourning, calls for action and emotional debate — and brought increased attention to the high rate of suicide in the trans community. A recent study from UCLA found that 41 percent of transgender people in the survey had attempted suicide — nearly nine times the national average. That's why Greta Martela founded Trans Lifeline, a suicide hotline for trans people, run by transgender volunteers."

"A San Francisco-based activist and trans woman has founded a crowd-funded toll-free help line for trans teens in crisis. Greta Gustava Martela hopes to avert tragedies like the suicide of 17-year-old Leelah Alcorn of Kings Falls, Ohio, who took her own life on Sunday."

"When trans people reach out for help, many experience the same discrimination from medical professionals as they do in their private lives. Trans Lifeline seeks to remove that stigma."

History

"Trans Lifeline, the first U.S. suicide hotline dedicated to transgender people, began taking calls this month, reports Time."

"Finding enough money to get Trans Lifeline going and keep it going was a big question mark — but, as it turned out, the easy part. In the first couple days, Martela and Chaubal raised more than $1,000 in donations; after the first few weeks, they'd pulled in close to $11,000. Martela at that point decided to dedicate herself to Trans Lifeline full-time, and Chaubal quit her job at Google."

"After her transition a few years ago, Greta Martela recognized the need for resources for transgender people. She, like many other transgender people, considered suicide during that traumatic period of her life. She decided to start a lifeline for others like her — Trans Lifeline, a suicide hotline for transgender and gender nonconforming youth. It was launched in November 2014."

"As the world marks the Transgender Day of Remembrance to commemorate the transgender and gender-nonconforming people taken from us by violence in the past year, a new resource — the trans-staffed crisis phone line Trans Lifeline — is now available to help trans people."

"Trans Lifeline is the first crisis and suicide hotline dedicated to the wellbeing of transgender people, and it already started taking calls just at the end of last year. Greta Martela and her partner Nina Chaubal started it “on a whim on a Sunday afternoon” in September."

"Greta Gustava Martela, co-founder of Trans Lifeline, a crisis hotline for transgender people, told The Daily Beast that their call volume has “nearly doubled” since North Carolina restricted the use of public bathrooms based on birth certificate gender markers."

"A suicide hotline that bills itself as the only transgender crisis hotline in the US says that the number of calls it has received has doubled since the passage of HB 2. Executive director Greta Martela of Trans Lifeline, a Chicago-based, California-registered non-profit staffed entirely by transpeople, also tells the INDY that according to records, the group has taken calls from 249 North Carolinians over the course of the organization's history. Fifty-one of those calls from North Carolina have been in 2016 alone, with twenty-seven calls coming in since March 23, the day the law passed."

Expansion after 2016 Trump election

"And at Trans Lifeline, a hotline launched just two years ago for transgender people and staffed by other trans people, the phones started ringing louder about 10 p.m. Ninety-seven calls were answered Tuesday night, and by early Wednesday evening the hotline had received more than 500 calls. At times, they had more than they could handle."

"Trans Lifeline, the only support hotline catering specifically to transgender people, has received more calls in the 24-hour period surrounding election night than in any 24-hour period before, the hotline tells Bustle. As of 4:45 p.m. EST on Nov. 9, Trans Lifeline had received 400 calls from struggling transgender people."

"A crisis and suicide prevention hotline for transgender people said it’s received a “record number of calls” since Donald Trump won the U.S. presidency on Tuesday night. On Wednesday, Trans Lifeline, a 24/7 hotline based in San Francisco, wrote in a Medium post that it had received more than 350 calls “from trans people in crisis, including many suicidal people,” since the election."

"Martela, who is trans herself, told ABC News today that "trans people already face blatant discrimination and harassment on a daily basis," but many fear Trump's "hateful campaign and rhetoric" could stir "more discrimination, more harassment and more violence than ever.""

"On a normal day, the Trans Lifeline fields 50 to 60 calls, Martel said. When North Carolina's House Bill 2, commonly referred to as the "bathroom bill," was at its height in the news, the lifeline got as many as 250 calls a day. But since the election, and with no sign of abating, the service is getting more than 500 calls a day. Given its scrappy, startup size, she says, its workers are lucky if they can answer 200 a day."

"Trans Lifeline, the hotline for transgender and gender-neutral people in crisis, is expanding its volunteer training program, following what staffers said was a dramatic increase in calls following the presidential election."

"This week, the helpline saw a spike in calls in the days following President Donald Trump's reversal of previous guidance from Barack Obama's administration on transgender bathroom protections in public schools."

Co-founders

"In 2013, at one of the lowest points in her life, 44-year-old software engineer Greta Martela placed a call to the National Suicide Prevention Hotline."

"Indian-born transgender rights activist Nina Chaubal has been detained by immigration authorities and threatened with imminent deportation. She is currently being held in an Arizona Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility notorious for its mistreatment of LGBT detainees. Raw Story spoke to Greta Martela — Chaubal’s partner and co-founder of TransLifeline, an 800-number for trans people in crisis — who explained that because of a bureaucratic muddle, Chaubal has been unable to complete the naturalization process."

"Trans Lifeline co-founder Nina Chaubal ( a transgender woman and citizen of India ) appeared in front of Chicago Immigration Court Judge Elizabeth Lang Nov. 29 for an administrative hearing where the Department of Homeland Security ( DHS ) was pursuing a deportation case against her. About 15 supporters squeezed into the small courtroom to rally behind Chaubal and her U.S. citizen wife Greta Martela."

"The creation of Trans Lifeline stemmed from observations Martela made while she volunteered at Transgender San Francisco, a support group for the transgender community. Chaubal said her wife noticed that calls from the community to the organization — many of which were crisis calls across the country — typically went straight to voicemail. The couple concluded that calls like that should be answered immediately, and they subsequently explored ideas on how they could create a similar resource that could be better scaled to serve the community."

Supporters

"The donations kept pouring in over the weekend, and as of Monday morning, the campaign had pulled in over $18,000 for Trans Lifeline."

"In just 36 hours, the Trans Lifeline — a crisis hotline "by and for" the transgender community — received around $51,000 in donations, Trans Lifeline Director of Communication André Pérez said in an email Thursday. It was a deluge of support so profound, it crashed the site's server. Some of the support, Pérez said, was due to social media attention from celebrities — like that of singer Katy Perry, whose Wednesday tweet espoused the hotline's work."