Case Study: Trans Lifeline achieves scalable, anonymous global peer support with Twilio

Supporting a global trans community with a twilio-powered system

Trans Lifeline, founded in 2014, is a peer‑support crisis hotline run entirely by transgender operators that serves a global community of callers. The nonprofit also runs a microgrants program that has dispersed nearly $400,000 to help trans people with IDs and other needs; it faced the challenge of supporting a distributed volunteer workforce, protecting caller anonymity and confidentiality, and reaching isolated or rural callers without a physical call center.

By building on Twilio—using conference calling and recordings, masked numbers, Programmable Messaging and a custom operator dashboard—Trans Lifeline connects callers to volunteers, enables QA review, and collects microgrant applications without exchanging personal contact info. The solution proved reliable, scalable and cost‑effective: the organization has answered 88,290 calls to date, seen a 35% year‑over‑year increase in demand, and is expanding services (including a Spanish hotline) while maintaining strict confidentiality.

Trans Lifeline

Chris Garaffa

Technology Director