988 LGBTQ+ Youth Line Returns Under Trump Trans-Denial Order
Get the Health newsletter
Daily health & science — research, biotech, public health, the studies worth knowing. Free.
- The Trump administration confirmed that specialized LGBTQ+ youth counseling on the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline will return by end of year, but wants the services to comply with last year's executive order that essentially denies the existence of transgender and nonbinary identities.
- Congress directed $33.1 million via an appropriations bill to reinstate the LGBTQ+ youth line, which the administration had shuttered last July, with the law specifying services should support all LGBTQ+ youth.
- The Trevor Project, which has run an LGBTQ+ youth hotline since 1998 and handled about half the calls to 988's specialized line since its 2022 launch, submitted a proposal to provide the restored services despite uncertainty over its eligibility due to a technicality in the application.
- Aaron Almanza, executive director of the LGBT National Help Center, warned that if trans youth calling the line are "told they're incorrect, that's going to cause more people to spiral" — and "the biggest fear is that it's going to kill them."
- Trevor Project Director of Crisis Intervention Alex Boyd described how gender identity underpins most calls even when not the presenting issue, sharing a case of a young adult forced to rely on an abusive, unsupportive family during a medical crisis who had intermittently called the line for nearly 10 years.
- Boyd recounted a separate call from a young person who had attempted suicide and feared calling 911, requiring crisis counselors to rebuild trust after the caller disengaged before convincing them to accept emergency services within 30 minutes.
Why it matters: With 988's LGBTQ+ youth line set to reopen under an executive order that denies trans identities, crisis counselors may be barred from affirming the very thing their callers need validated — and advocates say an altered service that tells trans youth they're wrong could prove deadlier than no service at all for a population already at elevated suicide risk.
