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Terms and Conditions

The Lesbian Gay Bi Trans Youth Line is a free peer support service for youth in Ontario, aged 29 and under. This service will allow you to chat with another young 2SLGBTQ person who may be able to relate to what you’re going through. You can chat about whatever is concerning you.

This service is not intended for anyone experiencing a suicidal crisis or in need of immediate medical services. If you are feeling suicidal, or are in immediate danger, please call 911 or your local distress centre (you can find the number for your area at http://www.dcontario.org/help.html) or visit the nearest hospital emergency room.

Please remember to close the conversation when it ends and make sure you are in a private area if needed.

When chatting with us we ask you to abide by the following rules:
• Do not use this service if you are experiencing a crisis, emergency situation or are in immediate danger.
• Do not use this service if you are over 29 years old.
• Do not prank chat us. Prank chats take time away from your peers who may really need help.
• Do not present us with sexual scenarios for the purposes of your own sexual gratification.
• Do not embed material using HTML whether images sound or video.
• Do not send links to any other websites.
• Do not impersonate another person whether famous or otherwise.
• Do not make racist, sexist, or ableist comments or engage in hate speech.

Legal stuff

The Lesbian Gay Bi Trans Youth Line peer support service is provided to youth solely at our discretion. Conversations may be terminated immediately if rules are violated. Profiles can be blocked and removed permanently for any cause we deem reasonable. You understand that we do not incur any liability by doing so.

Please remember that peer support alone can’t take the place of health care you may need. Do not rely upon any of the information provided on this site for medical diagnosis or treatment. Please consult your primary health care provider about any personal health concerns. A call to the Youth Line does not replace a call to 911 — the first number you should call in an emergency.

By agreeing to the Terms and Conditions for the Lesbian Gay Bi Trans Youth Line you permanently agree to release the Lesbian Gay Bi Trans Youth Line from all suits claims and actions pertaining to your experiences with us.

If you have any issues with your chat volunteer, please contact the Programs Manager at 1-888-687-9688 ext. 228 or at programs@youthline.ca

Privacy

The Lesbian Gay Bi Trans Youth Line is committed to respecting your privacy and protecting your personal information. This Privacy Statement explains the current information management practices at our website. We are committed to protecting your privacy whether you are browsing for information or conducting business electronically. When you visit our website, we will not collect your personal information unless you choose to use and receive online products and services that require it.

What WE do to protect your privacy:

We are COMMITTED TO CONFIDENTIALITY. Both our service volunteers and our service users are anonymous.

What is Confidential?

Confidential means, the Youth Line will not repeat any information that you share with a volunteer during your conversation with anyone outside our team.  Your secrets and feelings are safe with us.

There are only a couple of exceptions, when we might have to breach this confidentiality.  These are the same exceptions you will encounter in any ‘counselling’ type service and they are required by law

  • If you share identifying information with us about a person living in Ontario under the age of 16 who is experiencing physical, sexual or emotional abuse we have a duty to report this information to a local child protection service. Identifying information means full name, age, address, school
  • If you let us know that you are planning to hurt someone.
  • If you let us know that you are planning to hurt yourself.

What is anonymous?

  • We do not have call display.
  • We only know what you tell us.
  • We won’t even know your name if you don’t want us to.
  • We won’t tell you our name, so you don’t have to worry about knowing us, or bumping into us some day.
  • You choose what you want to reveal to our volunteers.
  • We don’t keep files on our service users.

What do we know about our service users?

We keep our statistics general – asking only for your area code and some general information about your age, your ethnicity, your gender.  We do this so that we know what communities we’re reaching and what communities we need to reach out to.

What YOU can do to protect your privacy:

On Email

When e-mailing with a Peer Support Volunteer online you might not want to use the same email that you use for work or one that has your real name or any identifying information.

Emails have a lot of information linked to them, for example your Facebook page may be attached to that account.

Online

Concerned about someone finding out where you’ve been on the net? Here’s how to reduce the chances that your net travels will be traced.  Browsers like Internet Explorer and Firefox are designed to leave traces behind indicating where you’ve been and what you’ve been looking at on the Internet.

It’s hard to absolutely guarantee that your travels on the Internet can’t be traced at all, but here are some simple things you can do to reduce the chances that someone can look through your computer and find out what you’ve been reading.

In general, you want to erase two things:

  1. Your Cache (this is where the computer stores copies of files you’ve recently looked at with your browser).
  2. Your History List (this is a single file containing the addresses of the places you’ve recently visited).

Keep in mind that if you share your computer with your family, their Cache and History will be erased as well.

  1. Select Tools > Internet Options
  2. Under Browsing History click Delete
  3. Select the following checkboxes:
    1. Temporary Internet files and web site files
    2. Cookies and web site data
  4. Click Delete
  5. Click OK
  6. Close and restart your browser
  1. Select the Tools icon > History
  2. Click Clear Recent History
  3. In the “Time range to clear” drop-down menu, select Everything
  4. Next to Details click the down arrow
  5. Select the following checkboxes:
    1. Cookies
    2. Cache
    3. Active Logins
  6. Click Clear Now
  7. Close and restart your browser
  1. Select the Safari/Edit icon > Reset Safari
  2. Select the following checkboxes:
    1. Clear History
    2. Remove all website data
  3. Click Reset
  4. Close and restart your browser
  1. Select the Tools icon > Settings
  2. Click Settings
  3. Click Show Advance Settings
  4. Under “Privacy” click Clear Browsing Data
  5. Select the following checkboxes:
    1. Empty the Cache
    2. Delete cookies and other site and plug-in data
  6. Click Clear Browsing Data
    Close and restart your browser

One additional but important tip: When you clear the cache and the history list, you erase not only the information on where you’ve been, but any other information that had been previously stored there.

So, if your family checks and sees that the cache and the history list have been completely emptied, they’ll not only know that you know how to do this, but they might guess that you’re trying to hide something.

One possible way to avoid suspicion is to clear the cache and history once you’re done looking at information you don’t want your family to know about. After they’re cleared, spend some time visiting sites that you think your family wouldn’t object to. This way, the cache and history list start to get filled up and your family might be less likely to notice that old information is missing.

Other browsers

Other browsers will be slightly different in the detail of what’s required to do these two things. But in any case, what you’ll need to do is clear your cache (or “temporary files”) and erase your history list. Again, this doesn’t guarantee that your browsing can’t be traced. Someone with greater computer sophistication will still be able to reconstruct your net travels. But it’s a good thing to do to make it more difficult for someone to know where you’ve been. This website is property of the Lesbian Gay Bi Trans Youth Line. Content developed in partnership with other organizations or individuals is noted.

External Links

There may be websites linked to and from this site that are operated or created by or for organizations outside of the Lesbian Gay Bi Trans Youth Line. Those organizations are solely responsible for the operation and information (including the right to display such information) found on their respective websites. These linked websites may or may not be available in French. The linking to or from this site does not imply on the part of the Lesbian Gay Bi Trans Youth Line any endorsement or guarantee of any of the organizations or information (including the right to display such information) found on their respective websites. The Lesbian Gay Bi Trans Youth Line does not assume and is not responsible for any liability whatsoever for the linking of any of these linked websites, the operation or content (including the right to display such information) of any of the linked websites, nor for any of the information, interpretation, comments or opinions expressed in any of the linked websites. Any comments or inquiries regarding the linked websites are to be directed to the particular organization for whom the particular website is being operated.

Accuracy of Content

This information is provided as a public service. Although we endeavour to ensure that the information is as current and accurate as possible, errors do occasionally occur. Therefore, we cannot guarantee the accuracy of the information. Readers should where possible verify the information before acting on it.