A support line, answered by the community#
Switchboard began on 4 March 1974 as London Gay Switchboard, a few hours each evening above a bookshop near King's Cross, and soon ran around the clock. It now describes itself as the UK's LGBTQIA+ support line, and estimates it has supported more than four million people. Every contact is answered by a volunteer who is part of the LGBTQIA+ community, and it says its listening service receives no government funding. Over the last decade it has had a rising number of contacts from trans and non-binary people.
Phone, chat or email#
Its get support page shows the three ways in, with a live indicator of whether the line and chat are open:
- Phone and instant message, from 10am to 10pm, 365 days a year.
- Email, answered within about five days.
When it is closed, its help when we're closed page lists services open at other hours, such as Childline for under-19s, Samaritans, a 24-hour text service and a line for older people, and notes that their volunteers are not necessarily LGBTQ+. Switchboard's own site blocks automated reading, so this page was checked in an ordinary browser.
What stays private#
Its confidentiality statement is worth reading if privacy matters to you, as it often does to someone planning a new name. Volunteers do not ask who you are unless it would help keep you or someone else safe, or to suggest a service near you, and you need not say anything you would rather not. The system can see the number or email address you contact it from. Conversations are recorded for training, quality and safeguarding and kept for eight months, and the statement sets out the rare cases in which it would share information.
When a name is part of what you want to talk about#
Switchboard is a place to talk, not an advice service, and it publishes no guidance on deed polls or documents. People do call about the things around a change of name: coming out to family, starting to use a new name at work, worry about who will see an old one. For the practical side, these pages go further:
- Who can see my former name? covers what stays out of public view and which checks still ask for earlier names.
- Changing your name if you are trans or non-binary brings together the name, the passport and the order of steps.
- Charities for trans and non-binary people lists those that publish name guides, including free templates.
A deed poll need not cost anything: GOV.UK prints wording you can copy, and two adults sign as witnesses; Can I get a deed poll for free? has the steps.
Other London support#
If you are in or near London and want face-to-face groups or counselling, London Friend runs them at its centre on Caledonian Road and itself refers people to Switchboard for a listening line.
This page describes what Switchboard LGBT+ publishes on its own website, read on 26 October 2026. Switchboard has not reviewed it, and a listing here is not a sign that it recommends this handbook or any deed poll service.
