Hi @mdemoss 
welcome to Meta 
Thanks for the message. I cannot reproduce this on the most recent commit version, nor on a hosted site. When I use a test user with TL_0, I do not get the chat link in the navigation sidebar menu. And if I switch between test users of various trust levels, TL_0 is the only one that doesn’t get chat besides anon.
Are you on an up-to-date Discourse instance? Can you perhaps provide more details of the browser, OS, etc. and even screenshots? Try safe mode as well and see if the chat/DM link appears there for TL_0.