White House proposes axing 988 suicide hotline services for LGBTQ youth

NBC News

a day ago

The Department of Health and Human Services' proposed budget for 2026 eliminates specialized suicide hotline services for LGBTQ youth and young adults.
The budget proposal, which the department published Friday, designates $520 million for 988, the suicide prevention line, and behavioral health crisis services, which is the same amount the Biden administration provided for 988. However, the 2026 budget proposal would end government funding for LGBTQ-specific counseling to 988 callers upon request.
When asked for comment, a spokesperson for HHS directed NBC News to the White House's Office of Management and Budget.
Rachel Cauley, a spokesperson for OMB, noted that the proposed budget would provide the same amount for 988 services as was provided in previous years.
'It does not, however, grant taxpayer money to a chat service where children are encouraged to embrace radical gender ideology by 'counselors' without consent or knowledge of their parents,' Cauley said.
'Radical gender ideology' is a political term adopted by conservatives and President Donald Trump's administration to describe the existence of transgender people and the trans rights movement, which it considers harmful to children.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline has existed since 2005, and, in 2020, during his first term, Trump signed legislation designating 988 as the new lifeline number by 2022. That legislation required 988 to provide LGBTQ youth and young adults who call the line with access to 'specially trained staff and partner organizations,' noting that queer and trans youth 'are more than 4 times more likely to contemplate suicide than their peers, with 1 in 5 LGBTQ youth and more than 1 in 3 transgender youth reporting attempting suicide.'
A senior administration official said the money for services for LGBTQ young people has not been cut, but rather reallocated to the general 988 services so that it doesn't go to 'radical grooming contractors,' using another term adopted by conservatives decades ago to falsely equate being LGBTQ or promoting LGBTQ inclusivity with sexually abusing children. The contractors who provide LGBTQ-specific services through 988 are mental health organizations based across the U.S. Most of them provide mental health care to the general population in addition to LGBTQ people.
The official said only the contract with 'radical gender' counselors is being terminated, and not the resources. However, under the proposed budget, when LGBTQ youth and young adults under age 25 call 988, there will not be an option for them to be connected to a counselor who is trained to provide support to LGBTQ youth. Currently, LGBTQ young people can also text 'PRIDE' to 988 to reach a counselor with such training.
The official did not respond to additional questions regarding what organization(s) 'radical grooming contractors' was referring to specifically.
The Trevor Project, a national suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ youths, is among the contractors that make up a subnetwork of specialists who provide 988 services to LGBTQ young people.
'Attempts to discredit these life-saving services will not change the reality of what this administration is proposing: the elimination of a national suicide prevention program, run by seven leading crisis contact centers, that has supported over 1.3 million LGBTQ+ youth across the U.S. with best-practice crisis care,' Jaymes Black, the project's CEO, said in a statement to NBC News, referring to the number of contacts who have reached out to 988 for LGBTQ-specific support since the program's start in 2022.
'Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle — and our President — came together during the first Trump administration to create this specialized resource,' Black added. 'It's a shared acknowledgement that every young life is worth saving, and that risk, not identity, drives evidence-based and effective crisis intervention. We strongly urge the administration and Congress to rethink this proposal, and do what is best for ending the public health crisis of suicide among our nation's youth.
The other six contractors who provide 988 services to LGBTQ young people are Centerstone, Volunteers of America Western Washington State, Solari Crisis & Human Services, CommUnity Crisis Services, HopeLink Behavioral Health and La Frontera EMPACT. Centerstone did not answer NBC News' question about the proposed elimination to 988's LGBTQ-specific service, and the other organizations did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In April, The Washington Post reported a leaked HHS budget draft that proposed cutting funding for 988 services for LGBTQ youth. At the time, the White House wouldn't confirm the veracity of that draft or the information about the funding.
The budget proposal is the latest effort from the Trump administration to rollback services and protections for LGBTQ people, specifically transgender people. In the first few weeks of his second administration, Trump issued several executive orders targeting trans people, including declaring that there are only two unchangeable sexes; prohibiting trans people from enlisting and serving in the military; barring trans girls and women from competing on female sports teams in federally-funded K-12 schools and colleges; and barring federal funding from going to hospitals that provide transition-related care to minors.
Federal officials have also scrubbed agency websites of any mention of transgender or intersex people, including from the website for the Stonewall National Monument commemorating the site of the 1969 Stonewall Uprising, in which historians say trans people were crucial and became a turning point in the modern gay rights movement. At the start of June, which is LGBTQ Pride month, the Navy confirmed to NBC News that it would rename the USNS Harvey Milk, a fleet replenishment oiler named for the LGBTQ rights activist, Navy veteran and first openly gay man elected to public office in California.