The Trump administration is considering changes to the national suicide hotline’s specialized service for LGBTQ-identifying youth, which routes children to transgender activist organizations, the Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.
The LGBTQ hotline, which routes young callers to organizations that specialize in “affirming” counseling, has received over a million contacts since it was launched in 2022, federal data shows. In those years, it placed access to transgender activists at children’s fingertips, enabling youth who text “PRIDE” to 988 or press option “3” after dialing the main hotline to connect with a counselor who will talk to them about gender identity — often without parental knowledge.
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“HHS is reviewing the 988 Hotline and working to comply with President Trump’s Executive Order Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to The Federal Government,” a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) spokesperson told the DCNF. “Additionally, we are working to ensure that HHS better serves the American people at the highest and most efficient standard, as it relates to those experiencing a suicidal crisis or emotional distress.”
Typically, 988 suicide hotline callers will be routed to one of nearly 200 local crisis centers in the network. But callers who select another option, such as pressing “1” to reach a Veterans Crisis Line or “3” to access the LGBTQ line, will be directed to a specialized service.
Under the Biden administration, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Agency (SAMHSA) invested $7.2 million to launch the pilot program targeting LGBTQ youth, which was initially operated solely by the Trevor Project. The Trevor Project is now one of seven subcontractors.
Parents Defending Education has flagged the Trevor Project for operating an online chat that allows children to have private conversations about gender with unrelated adults. The organization’s online messaging function includes a “quick exit feature” that closes the chat and clears browser history for children who do not want their parents to see the conversation.
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An online community offered by the Trevor Project apart from the 988 hotline, known as the TrevorSpace, also allows minors and adults from 13-24 to discuss topics related to sexuality.
The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty drafted a letter for parents concerned about their school districts recommending students use the TrevorSpace forum, where adults can “discuss physical locations and details on how to engage in further private communications” with children using the platform. A Trevor Project spokesperson told the DCNF that moderators ensure minors do not direct message adults.
The Trevor Project is entwined with other activsim: it offers an “adult ally” training for teachers and healthcare professionals and recommends school policies. Marci Bowers, former president of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, serves on its board.
The organization opposes policies that require educators to inform parents when their child is using a new name or pronouns at school and supports policies that allow men to use womens’ bathrooms and locker rooms. It claims irreversible procedures like cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers are “medically necessary” treatments for transgender-identifying youth.
The Trevor Project’s pilot with the 988 hotline was reportedly plagued by long wait times and poor management, according to the Washington Blade. Preston Mitchum, former director of advocacy and government affairs for the Trevor Project, told the LGBTQ-focused outlet that his organization became “so bogged down in the minutiae of money, of notoriety, of power, that it lost all ideas of responsibility to LGBTQ people” amid the launch.
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“When contacts reach out to The Trevor Project’s 24/7 crisis intervention services, they receive best-in-class crisis care, accredited by the American Association of Suicidology, to help them through their darkest moments,” a Trevor Project spokesperson told the DCNF. “Similar to other leading crisis services experts, Trevor counselors follow a standardized risk assessment for each contact, and assist with identifying safety plans and strategies tailored to the individual who has reached out.”
‘All Identities’
In 2020, President Donald Trump signed bipartisan legislation designating 988 as the universal suicide and mental health crisis hotline. The bill included a provision to “develop a strategy to provide access to competent, specialized services for high-risk populations such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth; minorities.”
Sam Brinton, the nonbinary former Biden Department of Energy official who was dismissed after stealing luggage at an airport, lobbied for the passage of the bill while he was vice president of advocacy and government affairs at The Trevor Project.
“We have never had an LGBTQ-inclusive bill pass Congress unanimously, and that is kind of what reminds me that this was worth all this work,” Brinton told NPR in 2020. \
While at the Trevor Project, Brinton also helped pioneer a “Model School District Policy on Suicide Prevention” that is offered as a resource in some states like New York.
When unveiling funding for the LGBTQ youth line in July 2022, former SAMHSA’s 988 Acting Director John Palmeiri and SAMHSA’s Senior Advisor on LGBTQI+ Policy wrote for the Washington Blade that “stigmatization, rejection, trauma, victimization, microaggressions, homophobia and transphobia” contribute to elevated suicide risk.
“Conversely, support and connection between LGBTQI+ youth and their family or caregiver, peers, school and community, can promote better mental health, fewer negative outcomes and stronger resilience,” they wrote. “The federal government, along with public and private sector partners, plays an important role toward building this affirming support and connection.”
Biden White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre directly told LGBTQ-identifying children who felt “overwhelmed” by states passing child sex change bans to call the 988 hotline during a press briefing, LGBTQ Nation reported in April 2023.
The 988 hotline administrator, Vibrant Emotional Health, focuses heavily on identity categories in its work. Blog posts on the group’s website include “Supporting Black Mental Health” and “Supporting Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Mental Health.”
“We champion the beauty within the multitudes of all identities, like the flowing hues of fall colors,” Johnell Lawrence, Vibrant Emotional Health’s director of 988 equity and belonging, wrote in a blog post for Trans Day of Remembrance. “Specifically, we want to celebrate the Trans, non-binary, queer, two-spirited and gender variant members of the Vibrant community.”
‘Not Out To Their Parents’
Besides the Trevor Project, Vibrant Emotional Health works with six other subcontractors for the LGBTQ service. These include CommUnity, EMPACT , Solari, HopeLink, Centerstone and Volunteers of America Western Washington (VOAWW), according to the HHS.
The DCNF contacted several of these centers but did not receive details on how they counsel LGBTQ-identifying youth who call the hotline.
The services reach those struggling with issues besides suicide ideation, one subcontractor, a nonprofit called Centerstone, explained last year in an interview with the Nashville Scene. Conversations with counselors can also help youth practice “coming out” to their families, Centerstone’s vice president of 988 services Kelly Bombardiere said in June 2024.
Counselors at Centerstone rely on organizations like the left-wing Human Rights Campaign and GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ+ Equality, according to the Nashville Scene.
“I refer to 988 as kind of like a catchall,” Bombardiere told the outlet. “It’s for anything, because everyone’s definition of a crisis is different.”
A spokesperson for Centerstone told the DCNF the organization treats “each contact with individualized care and attention” but did not elaborate on resources offered to LGBTQ individuals. The organization’s website links to GLSEN, the It Gets Better Project and the Trevor Project.
Centerstone has also received a $850,000 grant from SAMHSA to facilitate training that encourages military families to affirm their child’s beliefs about gender at its branch in North Carolina.
Not every caller is suicidal: Social concerns are the second highest reason for contacting the hotline, Cassie Villegas, who directs contact center operations and clinical services for 988 subcontractor Solari Crisis & Human Services, told KJZZ Phoenix in 2023.
“They’re maybe not out to their parents yet,” Villegas said. “Or maybe they don’t have a community that is supportive of them…A lot of people just struggle with finding that, knowing who to reach out to, and knowing that there is support out [there] for them.”
The official 988 website highlights organizations like Planned Parenthood, which offers hormone therapy; GLAAD, which advances LGBTQ causes in the media; and the It Gets Better Project, which offers grants to fund student projects on transgenderism in schools, as resources for youth in crisis.
Hotline subcontractors may also connect youth who reach out to other local LGBTQ organizations.
The Biden administration encouraged all 988 service providers, not just subcontractors for the LGBTQ service, to “address the needs of the LGBTQI+ population and to promote the specialized services for LGBTQI+ youth,” in a guidance document for SAMHSA grant recipients.
The guidance document highlighted a Montana 988 lifeline center that offered an “LGBTQI+ Ally Training.”
“Additionally, 988 counselors participated in several LGBTQI+ friendly events, providing information about services and returning with resource information to equip 988 Counselors with tools needed to position the Center as a community ally,” the document states.
‘Prejudice The Dialogue’
One leadership team member for a state crisis support center that partners with the 988 hotline expressed concern that resources have been diverted from people who really need help.
“While the Biden-Harris administration has injected unprecedented funding into the program, much of it has failed to reach frontline staff—the counselors who are the lifeline’s heartbeat,” he wrote in a letter to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) shared with the DCNF in January.
“Instead, this federal bureaucracy and excessive spending have created a ‘pay-to-play’ industry, where the emphasis on administrative policies and optics overshadows direct service,” the letter continues. “Many of the original organizations and trailblazers who built this network have left, driven out by a system that now prioritizes large-scale contracts and political agendas over the simple act of helping people.”
Vibrant Emotional Health has pulled in upwards of $850 million through contracts with SAMHSA since 2020. From 2017 to 2019, the company received only around $32 million.
The budget nearly doubled from 2022 to 2023 alone, rising from $173.4 million to $325.9 million.
Vibrant Emotional Health declined to comment on the DCNF’s questions about its subcontractors and plans for complying with Trump’s executive order.
“When we try to place people into boxes based on gender, ethnicity or whatever it might be, I think we may lose sight of who they are as a person and their individuality,” Dr. Kurt Miceli, medical director of Do No Harm, told the DCNF. “It’s important for us to listen and not to prejudice the dialogue before it even happens.”
Every individual calling for help is unique, Miceli said, and the key to offering real support is focusing on the “underlying issues.” The best approach is encouraging people to develop relationships with providers in their community, rather than trying to solve their problems on a brief phone call, he told the DCNF.
The 988 hotline number is often displayed in schools. In some states, law requires printing the 988 number on student ID cards.
The California Family Counsel has raised concern that the main 988 hotline surveys children on their sexual orientation and gender identity.
Manhattan Institute Policy Analyst Joseph Figliolia told the DCNF that there is “no high-quality evidence that social or medical affirmation reduces the severity of gender dysphoria or other psychiatric illness, and there’s some evidence that mental health actually worsens after some interventions.”
“From this vantage point, a suicide hotline that presupposes that an affirming counselor will be a silver bullet for suicidal ideation likely misses the mark and does nothing to address the underlying causes driving a person’s distress,” Figliolia said. “On top of that, an affirming therapist is less likely to perform a true biopsychosocial assessment, or engage in differential diagnosis, meaning the underlying issues will continue to persist while a person’s cross-sex identity is reinforced.”
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First published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
