The gender hotline: Reflections on an innovative method

Background Recruiting trans and gender diverse (‘trans’) participants in qualitative research can be challenging, and conventional approaches often present barriers to access by not accounting for the importance of voice in gendered experience.Methods The Dynamic Gender Hotline Project is an interdisciplinary, community-engaged research project which piloted a ‘voicemail hotline’ method to account for the dynamic experience of voice. Responding to an asynchronous data collection method, participants called a phone number, listened to a brief prompt, and recorded a verbal response. Sixteen voicemail responses were received (ranging from 1:40 to 15:56 min in length; mean duration 7:39 min).Results The sample provided rich and varied responses surfacing dynamic experiences of gender within and across participants’ lifetimes. It also revealed participants’ reflexive engagement with the medium, and how voice is important content yet also a potential barrier to engagement.Discussion This pilot offers insights into an innovative methodological approach and reflects on how the voicemail hotline makes possible (and forecloses) trans-led, voice-based qualitative research on gender dynamism. We suggest this offers great opportunities for research focusing on voice-led self-reporting data collection approaches.