Trump Admin Shut Down Suicide Hotline for LGBTQ Youth
Since 2022, anyone who calls 988 — the US' nation-wide suicide and crisis hotline — has had the option to dial 3 to speak to a counselor trained to help LGBTQ youth. After July 17, however, this specialized extension will no longer exist. Yesterday, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) announced it would discontinue funding for the "LGB+" hotline, purposefully omitting the "T." That statement coincided with a stop-work order issued to The Trevor Project, one of seven nonprofits contracted to provide specialized counseling to minors, according to New York Times reporter Maggie Astor. Per SAMHSA, "press 3 services" […]
Since 2022, anyone who calls 988 — the US' nation-wide suicide and crisis hotline — has had the option to dial 3 to speak to a counselor trained to help LGBTQ youth.
After July 17, however, this specialized extension will no longer exist.
Yesterday, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) announced it would discontinue funding for the "LGB+" hotline, pointedly omitting the "T" that stands for "transgender." That statement coincided with a stop-work order issued to The Trevor Project, one of seven nonprofits contracted to provide specialized counseling to minors, according to New York Times reporter Maggie Astor.
Per SAMHSA, "press 3 services" have received $33 million in annual public funding, which is now being subsumed into the overall 988 budget.
This is being done, the administration says, "to focus on serving all help seekers, [emphasis in original] including those previously served through the Press 3 option."
Notably, the "press 3" provision is absent from the Health and Human Services 2026 budget proposal, along with other specialized hotlines like the Veterans Crisis Lifeline — currently "dial 1" — or the American Sign Language videophone connection. However, the LGBTQ extension is the only one SAMHSA released an explicit statement about.
That's a rather telling gesture by the Trump administration, which has wasted no time rolling back protections for LGBTQ people, mandating discrimination, and setting dangerous standards for transgender healthcare.
Given that the press 3 funding still goes to 988 anyway, it's difficult to paint this as anything other than a targeted move against LGBTQ youth, directly from the nation's top political leadership.
According to a joint statement from Democratic senators, the LGBTQ youth hotline has been contacted well over 1.2 million times in its three short years of operation. With that kind of volume, it's hard to deny there's an urgent need for specialized crisis counseling — especially given that nearly 40 percent of LGBTQ youth struggled with suicidal thoughts in 2024.
While there's never a great time to cut off programs that save children's lives, the Trump administration's moves come as LGBTQ people experience a huge uptick in dangerous and discriminatory incidents compared to previous years.
The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation recently noted, for instance, that the number of anti-LGBTQ incidents including assault, harassment, bomb threats, and arson in the US skyrocketed from 521 between 2022 and 2023 to 932 in 2024 and 2025.
Contrary to the Trump administration's feelings, incidents like these have been found to greatly intensify the need for specialized crisis services.
In that vein, it's probably no shock that the people committing these crimes are increasingly incited by the rise in hateful rhetoric circulating online. Since 2022, GLAAD told Futurism that 242 perpetrators referenced "gender ideology" in their attacks, while 517 mentioned false allegations of child abuse, or "grooming."
Even on its own, that hateful rhetoric has consequences, and has been found to directly relate to increases in the LGBTQ suicide rate. As one anonymous person testified to GLAAD, "I, being a part of the community, feel horrible seeing this kind of thing, knowing that the world is becoming a worse, intolerant place, where I might suffer violence on the streets because people are being increasingly encouraged to hate the LGBT+ community."
"It is unconscionable to rip lifesaving help away from LGBTQ youth, during Pride month, and in the midst of unprecedented anti-LGBTQ attacks," said Sarah Kate Ellis, President and CEO of GLAAD in a statement. "LGBTQ youth, just like all youth, deserve to receive competent care when they reach out for help."
GLAAD and The Trevor Project both note that specialized crisis counseling remains available around the clock, every day of the year, regardless of the government's rollback.
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The post Trump Admin Shut Down Suicide Hotline for LGBTQ Youth appeared first on Futurism.
