States and mental health organizations are bracing for the closure of a specialized service within 988, the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, for LGBTQ youth on Thursday under orders from the Trump administration amid its broader spending cuts and the dismantling of programs dedicated to diversity and inclusion. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the line goes silent, there are a lot of open questions that we\u2019re trying to prepare for,\u201d said Mark Henson, vice president of government affairs at the Trevor Project, an LGBTQ youth suicide prevention organization that responds to roughly half of 988\u2019s calls and text messages from LGBTQ young people<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The group, which has worked to improve youth mental health outcomes since 1998, launched an \u201cemergency lifeline campaign\u201d following the announcement from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) last month that 988 would \u201cno longer silo\u201d<\/a> LGBTQ youth services beginning July 17. <\/p>\n Funds raised through the campaign will help the Trevor Project continue \u201cto protect and support LGBTQ+ young people in the face of significant funding losses,\u201d according to the group\u2019s website<\/a>, including by hiring new crisis counselors in anticipation of surges in demand, as well as maintaining existing staffing. <\/p>\n Federal funding has allowed the Trevor Project to double its capacity in the three years since the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline formally launched in 2022, said Henson.<\/p>\n President Trump signed the bipartisan National Suicide Hotline Designation Act, which established 988 as the universal phone number for mental health emergencies, in 2020, shortly before leaving office.\u00a0<\/p>\n The bill that Trump signed<\/a> acknowledged disproportionately high suicide rates among young LGBTQ Americans. It tasked SAMHSA with recommending how to\u00a0best help \u201ccallers who are LGBTQ youth, minorities, rural individuals, or members of other high-risk populations\u201d access competent, specialized services.\u00a0<\/p>\n In a 2024 Trevor Project report<\/a>, 39 percent of LGBTQ 13- to 24-year-olds in the U.S. said they had seriously considered suicide over the past year, including 46 percent of transgender and nonbinary youth. Half of LGBTQ young people who wanted mental health care said they were unable to access it. <\/p>\n Since its 2022 launch, 988\u2019s specialized service for LGBTQ youth has received nearly 1.5 million<\/a> calls, texts and online chat messages. Counselors fielded roughly 70,000 crisis contacts in April, the latest month for which such data is available, marking an all-time high. <\/p>\n \u201cThe specialized service has been incredibly successful,\u201d said Adrian Shanker, a senior adviser on LGBTQ health equity for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under former President Biden. \u201cThere\u2019s also been societal factors that have increased the need for the service, and it\u2019s an insult upon injury that the specialized service would be removed at this point in time.\u201d <\/p>\n A flurry of executive orders and policies enacted since Trump\u2019s return to office in January directly target LGBTQ Americans, particularly those who are transgender. An order Trump signed on Jan. 20, his first day back, proclaims that the U.S. recognizes only two unchangeable sexes, male and female. <\/p>\n SAMHSA\u2019s announcement last month<\/a> that it would shut down the LGBTQ youth suicide hotline within 30 days said the program had previously served \u201cLGB+ youth,\u201d removing \u201ctransgender\u201d from the acronym. <\/p>\n In a Jan. 27 order<\/a> titled \u201cPrioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness,\u201d Trump said a person\u2019s belief that they are transgender is a \u201cfalsehood\u201d inconsistent with the \u201chumility and selflessness required of a service member.\u201d <\/p>\n Calls to the Trevor Project, which also operates separately from 988, jumped 33 percent<\/a> on Trump\u2019s Inauguration Day, according to the group, following a larger surge<\/a> on Election Day. <\/p>\n Henson, the Trevor Project\u2019s vice president of government affairs, said the organization expects to see continued spikes in demand as the federal government goes after transgender rights and diversity and inclusion initiatives. But operating on a reduced staff will likely increase wait times, he said, \u201cand every minute counts when you\u2019re in a crisis.\u201d <\/p>\n Trump administration officials have insisted that, despite the end of 988\u2019s LGBTQ specialized service line, funding for the lifeline and its overall functionality will remain the same. <\/p>\n \u201cThe President\u2019s Budget funds the 988 at $520 million \u2014 the same number as under Biden,\u201d Rachel Cauley, the White House Office of Management and Budget\u2019s communications director, told The Hill following last month\u2019s SAMHSA announcement. \u201cIt does not, however, grant taxpayer money to a chat service where children are encouraged to embrace radical gender ideology by \u2018counselors\u2019 without consent or knowledge of their parents.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Shanker, now an LGBTQ health policy consultant in Washington, said he worries the administration\u2019s actions may dissuade LGBTQ young people in crisis from contacting 988. <\/p>\n \u201cThe Trump administration has absolutely eroded trust in their own public health interventions, including in 988,\u201d he said. \u201cWe don\u2019t know how harmful that that lack of trust will be in terms of people\u2019s willingness to continue to call 988; I certainly hope that that LGBTQ youth in crisis will still continue to call and seek out the support that they need.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cI wouldn\u2019t discourage them from calling \u2014 in fact, I hope they will call,\u201d Shanker added. \u201cBut it\u2019s a big question. It\u2019s very hard to repair trust in government services, and the damage that has been done by [Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.] and his team is pretty severe.\u201d <\/p>\n In May, more than 100 House Democrats \u2014 and senators, in a separate letter<\/a> \u2014 said following through on the administration\u2019s plan to close the specialized service for LGBTQ youth would have \u201clethal consequences.\u201d<\/a> Republican Reps. Mike Lawler (N.Y.) and Young Kim (Calif.) also protested the hotline\u2019s closure<\/a>, as did more than 100 celebrities<\/a> across the entertainment industry in a letter organized by the Trevor Project. <\/p>\n Henson said the organization is still holding out hope that Congress will act to save 988\u2019s specialized LGBTQ services, even if it means waiting until the next fiscal year. <\/p>\n \u201cWe are working with Congress to both push back against the administration on this,\u201d he said, \u201cbut then try for the next fiscal year, for October 1, to have Congress assert its authority to say, \u2018Hey, no, no, this is vital. This is what this money needs to be spent on.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n SAMHSA\u2019s announcement last month also prompted some state and local governments to take action.\u00a0<\/p>\n A motion put before<\/a> the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday would direct the city\u2019s mental health department to collaborate with the Trevor Project and local 988 call centers to \u201cexplore options\u201d to keep the helpline\u2019s LGBTQ crisis service active in the region. Legislation introduced in February<\/a>, before a leaked budget\u00a0document revealed the Trump administration planned to eliminate 988\u2019s specialized services for LGBTQ youth, would require IDs issued to public middle-school students in California to include the number for the Trevor Project\u2019s suicide hotline.\u00a0<\/p>\n On Saturday, demonstrators and elected officials in New York City gathered outside Trump Tower in Manhattan to protest the administration\u2019s decision to close the hotline. The Communications Workers of America District 1, which co-organized Saturday\u2019s rally with local labor and nonprofit groups, said cuts to the hotline would cost more than 200 jobs. <\/p>\n Roughly a dozen crisis workers in New York and New Jersey are expected to lose their jobs, Gothamist reported<\/a> this month. CommUnity Crisis Services, a service line operator in Iowa City, Iowa, said earlier this month that it plans to lay off 49 workers, citing a stop-work order from the Trump administration, the Iowa City Press-Citizen<\/a> first reported. <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re letting go of really experienced, really passionate people, and it\u2019s really just heartbreaking,\u201d said Henson. \u201cTalking to these folks, they\u2019re overwhelmed with emotion, but they\u2019re not overwhelmed that they\u2019re losing their job \u2014 they\u2019re overwhelmed that they will no longer have the chance to serve and support people whose shoes they were in 5, 10, 15 years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" States and mental health organizations are bracing for the closure of a specialized service within 988, the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, for LGBTQ youth on Thursday under orders from the Trump administration amid its broader spending cuts and the dismantling of programs dedicated to diversity and inclusion. \u201cWhen the line goes silent, there are a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":305,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":304,"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303\/revisions\/304"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}