For years before XtrkR existed, I went there. I originally had a primary care provider, but the mismatch of being a queer Latino guy paired with a straight white man became quite apparent. He was a good doctor, but I felt like I had to translate everything from queer speak to straight talk. I also felt that he couldn't really understand my struggles or problems. So, based on a friend's recommendation, I went over to the Castro.
And there I found the kind of structured sexual-health care where I felt understood. Here, I had multi-site STI screening and PrEP-aware testing rhythms. But more than that, I felt supported and seen. When I couldn't afford PrEP, they worked hard to help me find financial assistance to begin my medication. And they were even there through the scary moments when I was waiting on a test result. It was truly mind-boggling, that someone would spend extra time out of their busy schedule to make sure I was OK. That's the reason that I kept going back to the Castro for years.
I don't live in San Francisco anymore, but I still think about how those years shaped my sexual health. The clinical care itself — visits, shots, medicine — is available with any provider. What changed when I moved was the queer-aware framing around it.
There's more than just going to the doctor, getting tested, taking the medication. The piece that doesn't always get captured is tracking what comes back, understanding what that means, and making more informed decisions around it. I tried other apps first; none captured what I needed. That's the gap XtrkR fills — the cadence that makes risk legible over time, and the continuity I can keep intact across whatever clinician I see next. Not a substitute for queer-aware clinical care or any medical care, but there to complement it.
I built XtrkR solo because not every app handles privacy the same way, and I wanted to be sure that my data — and yours — stays your own. Just as importantly, I wanted that to be structural: no investors who could push the company to monetize the user base, no team that could quietly relax the policy, no server-side data that could survive an acquisition or a subpoena. The architecture that protects you protects me too. I can't see your data either, because there's no place I could see it from.
The Castro clinic worked hard to find me PrEP financial assistance when I couldn't afford it. That experience shaped a pricing decision in XtrkR: the features that actually affect a health outcome — logging a dose, recording a test, generating a doctor visit summary — stay free for every user. Premium adds the analytics layer on top; the tools you'd use to stay safe aren't gated. The full breakdown is here.
XtrkR is built by one person, for one platform, with no investors, no advertising, and no data sales. The full architecture is documented at How XtrkR protects your data, and the privacy policy covers the legal details.
— Ed