# What is Trans Lifeline?

Trans Lifeline is a grassroots hotline and microgrants non-profit that offers direct emotional and financial support to trans people in crisis. It does this primarily via two services:

• A support hotline (available in the US and Canada) for trans people, in crisis or not, run by trans people–the first service of its kind.
• A microgrants program to provide trans and non-binary folks with funds to correct names and / or gender markers on legal documents.

Through these two services, Trans Lifeline has been able to answer over one-hundred thousand calls, trained over six hundred operators^[1], given almost two-hundred thousand dollars to incarcerated trans people, and over seven-hundred fifty thousand dollars^[2] to help trans people change their identifying documents.

…And about 85% of its budget comes from the general public in the form of small donations like yours^[3].

# Why Trans Lifeline?

We know that there are lots of amazing causes out there, and we could try to use a bunch of data and stats to convince you that this is the most important one. Like…

• The general suicide rate in the US is 1.6%, but 41% for trans people^[4]
• There is a huge amount of anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ legislation in the US^[5] and around^[6] the^[7] world^[8]
• We don’t even know even know how many people identify as trans because of how bad our data collection is it’s complicated^[9]

…But really, it comes down to this: The situation for many trans people right now is not good, and we want to do what we can to help.

Even if governments around the globe started protecting trans rights–which are human rights–there would still be a long way to go in terms of supporting trans people.

Trans Lifeline is helping people right now. We really dig Trans Lifeline’s values and it’s a small organization–only about twelve people on staff–that has a huge impact! Also, as mentioned above, most of its funding comes from small donations like the ones from our fundraiser.

# Why Chrono Trigger?

Why not?! Chrono Trigger is arguably^[10] one of the best^[11] games^[12] ever^[13]! Even more than twenty-five years later it is beloved for its unique story spanning multiple time periods, fantastic graphics (thank you, Akira Toriyama) and music (thank you, Yasunori Mitsuda), and its ability to execute its premise so well in such a short game–by JRPG standards.

Beyond that though, Chrono Trigger is a game that’s significant to us.

It’s a game we spent late nights bonding over in high school… and as adults.

A game we love so much that we’ve talked about it at length and even made a podcast about.

A game where the main characters could have sat by and done nothing but instead chose to make a better future.

…Need we say more?

# Why “The Race Against Time”?

Chrono Trigger is a game about the folly of man friendship time travel, so when we wanted to name the event, it seemed like a fitting title.

We’re not speedrunners, but we still want the event to have a sense of urgency both in terms of the time we have to raise money and to beat the game. Setting a goal of beating the game in twenty-four hours is something achievable, but also something that we can reliably organize every year.

Plus, we’re busy adults! And we don’t have the audience to pull off something like Desert Bus for Hope or Zeldathon–though we’re hugely inspired by both of them!

# Who are you?

We’re The Nickscast. Three Canadians (all named Nick) who’ve known each other since high school. And not only are we still friends–after more than fifteen years!–but we also make media together about fandom and pop culture like…

• Fanthropological: A discussion podcast with over 150 episodes covering the breadth of human fandom (completed)
• The Zeal Archives: Part audio drama, part discussion podcast, 100% love letter to a classic gaming gem–Covering the A-Z of the world of Chrono Trigger, one bit at a time (ongoing)
• Who in Review: A podcast where friends yell over top of each other about a thing they love - Doctor Who! (ongoing)

…And The Race Against Time!

Speaking of which, this is the seventh year we’ve been fundraising and to date have raised almost ten-thousand dollars Canadian for different charities.