'Keeps me up at night': Advocates fear fallout as an LGBTQ+ suicide lifeline ends
At The GenderCool Project, an advocacy group that supports transgender and nonbinary children, organizers work with young people who are thriving and excited about their future.
But that pride doesn't happen in a vacuum, said Chase Glenn, the project's executive director.
'It takes support," he said. 'Especially when the world feels unsafe.'
Now, Glenn and other LGBTQ+ community advocates say a critical layer of support is being stripped away.
Specialized services for LGBTQ+ youth through the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline are facing shutdown July 17 as part of federal budget cuts that include an overhaul of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The LGBTQ+-focused 988 lifeline program, which marked its third anniversary July 16, has served an estimated 1.5 million young people since its inception, according to the Trevor Project.
'Cutting specialized suicide hotline services for LGBTQ youth sends a devastating message to these youth, especially at a time when they're already up against nonstop political attacks and misinformation,' Glenn said.
He isn't alone in sounding alarms over the move. Jaymes Black, CEO of the Trevor Project, called the program's termination 'unfathomable.'
'This administration has made a dangerous decision to play politics with real young people's lives,' Black said.
The Trevor Project, one of seven federally funded contact centers that have partnered with the lifeline to offer LGBTQ+-focused support, has handled about half of the line's overall calls. Since April, when the proposed cuts were first revealed, the program has served about 70,000 LGBTQ+ youth per month. That's compared to between 45,000 and 51,000 children monthly during the same time frame in 2024.
The HHS restructuring consolidates 28 divisions into 15, including a newly created Administration for a Healthy America to implement secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s 'Make America Healthy Again' agenda.
Asked about the termination of the program, the department told USA TODAY the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration 'made a critical decision that sustained the entire 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline' by using remaining fiscal year funds 'to support all individuals.'
The 988 hotline will continue to operate as 'a direct connection to immediate support for all Americans, regardless of their circumstances,' the department said.
In a statement issued about the program's termination, SAMHSA, a division of HHS, said the lifeline would no longer silo "LGB+" youth services, omitting transgender people in its description, and instead "focus on serving all help seekers."
'Mental health equivalent of 911'
The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is operated by nonprofit organization Vibrant Emotional Health through a SAMHSA grant.
The hotline originally launched in 2005, offering immediate support to people experiencing suicidal crisis. It's 'the mental health equivalent of 911,' Mark Henson, the Trevor Project's vice president for federal advocacy and government affairs, said. The subnetwork serving LGBTQ+ young people launched as a pilot program in 2022, joining other subnetworks serving veterans and Spanish speakers with specialized mental health care.
Veterans can press 1, for instance, while Spanish speakers can press 2. For LGBTQ+ youth, pressing 3 puts them in touch with a counselor well-versed in issues that disproportionately impact LGBTQ+ youth, including stigma, family estrangement and potential homelessness.
'That enables our counselors to more quickly bond with the caller to understand, without having to have an explanation, some of the things that they're going through and create that respect and trust in order to help them through that day,' said Henson.
Research shows LGBTQ+ young people are more than four times as likely to attempt suicide than their peers. About four in 10 LGBTQ+ youth seriously consider suicide every year, according to the Trevor Project's 2024 annual survey; meanwhile, 90% of LGBTQ+ youth said increasing political rhetoric targeting the community had negatively affected their mental health.
'It's not that LGBTQ youth are inherently more likely to consider suicide,' said Cheryl Greene, senior director of Welcoming Schools, an anti-bullying program run by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation. 'It's the external factors, like discrimination and lack of support.'
Henson said that those factors underscore why the pilot program for LGBTQ+ youth was added as a 988 subnetwork in the first place.
President Donald Trump has targeted diversity and identity efforts since taking office earlier this year, dismantling federal programs through executive order and pressuring contractors to end "illegal DEI discrimination," which prompted some corporations to follow suit.
In critical moments, 'every minute counts'
Henson said in addition to the 988 hotline's LGBTQ+ services, the cutbacks also include $25 million in annual funding provided to the Trevor Project for hotline support, which the agency told USA TODAY enabled it to double its number of youth served last year.
While the Trevor Project's own 24/7 crisis services will continue, 'our ability to support youth will be cut in half just as demand is rising,' he said. 'What happens to those other folks who need those services? It's a question that keeps me up at night.'
LGBTQ+ youth won't be left without any place to go. With the 'press 3' option no longer available, calls will instead be handled generically, routed to state-level counselors, though they won't be guaranteed to have the same expertise, Henson said. Given the surging volume of LGBTQ+ calls, the move also risks overwhelming the available number of state counselors, which he fears could lead to increased wait times.
'In suicide prevention, every minute counts,' he said.
Zach Eisenstein, communications director for the Trevor Project, said wait times vary from day to day and hour to hour. A study by Northwestern University researchers published last year in the National Library of Medicine found that as of December 2022, the average wait time for all methods of contact — calls, texts or chats — was 44 seconds.
As the 988 changes set in, advocates also pointed to the Trump administration's heightened focus on the community and the hundreds of legislative proposals introduced yearly aimed at LGBTQ+ rights.
"Many of these youth don't have affirming families, and schools are struggling to affirm them. It just seems cruel, compounding everything right now, to take away this lifeline,' said Greene, of the Welcoming Schools program.
Black, of the Trevor Project, agreed.
'Despite our political differences, we should all agree that every young person's life is worth saving,' he said. 'I am heartbroken that this administration has decided to say, loudly and clearly, that some young people's lives are not.'
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