The Trevor Project

As you may know, The Trevor Project is a national (US) crisis line specifically for queer and questioning youth. I truly believe that culturally competent crisis counseling for the queer, including transgender, communities is hugely important. Knowing that when you call the person on the other end will respect your sexual orientation and gender identity, especially when you're not yet comfortable being out, could mean the difference between someone getting lifesaving support and a suicide attempt. This is a good thing.

There's only one problem: their website is not accessible.

Below is a letter I will be dropping in the mailbox later today:

September 25, 2010

To whom it may concern:

I learned about The Trevor Project a couple years ago in my late teens when I was struggling with coming out about my own gender identity and sexuality. I was lucky, I had someone who I could talk to and who knew how to listen. I never had to call. However, I feel that, had things been different, having access to a queer crisis line such as The Trevor Project could have very easily saved my life. Access to what you provide can be of lifesaving importance and it is for this reason that I write to voice my concern.

Because of the inaccessible nature of your website to blind and visually impaired users as many as one in two hundred individuals who are in need of your potentially lifesaving services may be unable to access them.(1) Some of these people may attempt suicide because of it. This is preventable through the careful adherence to accessible web development standards. If doing so is capable of reaching even one youth in crisis or averting even one preventable suicide I am sure you will agree that it is worth it.

Please, research accessible web design and incorporate it into your website wherever possible. If you are unable to do so yourself, please find someone who can. A good place to start your research is with the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.(2) I feel that we can both agree that not excluding people and making your potentially lifesaving services available to everyone who needs them is both a worthy and important goal.

Finally, I would like to commend The Trevor Project for already making considerable headway in making queer friendly crisis support accessible for people with disabilities, such as deafness or autism, with Trevor Chat. Nonetheless, The Trevor Project still has a long way to go before it is able to claim that it is accessible to all.

I look forward to supporting a fully accessible Trevor Project in the future.

Sincerely,

[name and contact information redacted]

(1) Statistic calculated using data provided by the National Federation of the Blind correlated with United States population statistics of the same time period. The National Federation of the Blind's statistics can be found on-line here: http://www.nfb.org/nfb/blindness_statistics.asp
(2) The W3C guidelines are available on-line at http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/

Hopefully their web inaccessibility is an oversight rather than a willful omission and my letter will bring it to their attention. I'm also planning on sending similar letters to their corporate sponsors petitioning them to request full accessibility as well if my letter is not enough to persuade them to action.

If you would like to contact their office their phone is 1-310-271-8845 and their address is:

The Trevor Project
Administrative Offices
9056 Santa Monica Blvd., Ste. 208
West Hollywood, CA 90069

To email, contact info@thetrevorproject.org.

If you are a gay or transgender youth who is in crisis or questioning, please contact their crisis line at 1-866-488-7386. They also have a text-based service at http://www.thetrevorproject.org/chat