Report: Funding for Crucial LGBTQ+ Youth Suicide Prevention Hotline Now in the Crosshairs

A suicide prevention hotline dedicated to helping LGBTQ+ youth find alternatives to self-harm is in danger of being defunded under a new budget plan for the Department of Health and Human Services.

The plan – among the latest planned cuts to governmental and federally supported services under the Trump administration – "would slash all funding for 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline's LGBTQ+ Youth Specialized Services, a federal program that runs the '988' phone line and connects callers with counselors and other services," UK newspaper the Independent reported.

"The budget draft, first reported by The Washington Post, would go into effect October 1 if approved by Congress," the newspaper added.

The hotline was established in 2022, during the Biden administration, and its gutting of the hotline is planned despite "the 988 crisis line [having] provided more than 1.2 million people with life-saving, LGBTQ+-inclusive crisis services, according to The Trevor Project, which responds to nearly half of all calls and texts to 988 from LGBT+ young people," the Independent detailed.

Plans to scrap the service have been made despite a demonstrable need for it. "Suicide remains the second leading cause of death among young people aged 10 to 14, and the third leading cause of death among 15-24 year olds," the Independent noted.

"LGBT+ young people are more than four times as likely to attempt suicide than their peers, according to The Trevor Project, which estimates roughly 1.8 million young LGBT+ Americans seriously consider suicide every year, and at least one attempts suicide every 45 seconds," the writeup went on to add.

The newspaper quoted Trevor Project CEO Jaymes Black saying in a statement that "Suicide prevention is about risk, not identity," and taking away the hotline "will not just strip away access from millions of LGBTQ+ kids and teens – it will put their lives at risk."

Then again, the newspaper pointed out, "The leading cause of death among young people is gun violence" – and right-wing lawmakers have been resistant to even the most mild suggestions for reducing the number of firearms that find their way to dangerous individuals, characterizing any such measures as an "attack" on gun rights and the Second Amendment.

The HHS is currently headed by vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr., under whose watch the country has seen an explosion of measles cases – a disease that, not long ago, was seen as being on the verge of eradication. With the outbreak surging past 800 cases across several states, Kennedy "called for people to get the measles vaccine," NBC News reported, "while in the same breath falsely claiming it hasn't been 'safety tested' and its protection is short-lived."

The Trump administration also recently ordered the Centers for Disease Control to scrub research with terminology considered politically incorrect, such as the acronym "LGBT."

In a more direct attack on LGBTQ+ health, the administration canceled hundreds of millions of dollars in grants administered by the National Institutes of Health.

Perhaps most tellingly, the NIH has pulled grant money from virtually all research associated with transgender health, while at the same time being instructed by the Trump administration to focus efforts on studying "regret" among trans people who have undergone gender confirmation treatment – a phenomenon that is almost unknown. According to research that has already been done in the field (some by the NIH itself), post-transition regret by transgender people is far less common than regret by people who have undergone plastic surgery, knee surgery, or bariatric surgery – none of which are under attack.

Indeed, almost all transgender people reporting in about their satisfaction with gender affirming care have reported an improvement in their quality of life. That high level of satisfaction is not restricted to surgical gender confirmation; those who have undergone hormone therapy – such as puberty blockers used for minors – also overwhelmingly reported happiness, and not regret, when it came to their treatment.