Phone Verification

Today I was about to talk in the chat when Discord said I needed to verify from my phone but why do we need to do that its very shady. I personally don't want to hand over my phone number because what if you don't have one. Can't I just verify by e-mail there has to be another way to be verified other then by phone. I don't think it's fair to make people put their phone number just to be Verified what if someone gets that information. I might just have to uninstall this app because I really don't feel comfortable giving my phone number.