Trump administration will end LGBTQ+ suicide prevention service

The Trump administration has instructed the national suicide prevention hotline to stop offering specialized support to LGBTQ+ callers next month, saying those callers can rely on the hotline’s general services.

The Trevor Project, a nonprofit that has provided that specialized support to LGBTQ+ callers to the 988 suicide prevention hotline, said Wednesday that it had received a stop-work order for that service, effective July 17, and provided a copy of the order to the New York Times.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the agency within the Department of Health and Human Services that oversees the hotline, confirmed the decision.

The option for LGBTQ+ support was established in 2022 based on a recognition that gay and transgender people experience distinct mental health issues – often driven by family rejection and societal discrimination – and have disproportionately high suicide rates.

In a statement that referred to “L.G.B.+ youth services” – omitting the “T” for transgender – SAMHSA said the decision was based on a desire to “no longer silo” those services and to “focus on serving all help seekers.” A spokesperson for the White House responded to an inquiry by referring to that statement, and a spokesperson for HHS said that the LGBTQ+ section had “run out of congressionally directed funding” and that continuing to fund it would jeopardize the entire hotline.

However, the White House Office of Management and Budget has previously described the hotline’s LGBTQ+ section as “a chat service where children are encouraged to embrace radical gender ideology by ‘counselors’ without consent or knowledge of their parents.” That language reflects the Trump administration’s broader efforts to eliminate services for and legal recognition of transgender people.

Those efforts have also included cutting funding for research on LGBTQ+ people’s health, and executive orders seeking to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, which affect LGBTQ+ people as well as people of color and others.

Some groups that rely on federal funding have scaled back services in response. The RAINN sexual assault crisis hotline, for example, instructed employees earlier this year not to refer callers to resources specific to LGBTQ+ people, immigrants and other marginalized groups.

The news of the hotline’s LGBTQ+ cut came just before the Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a Tennessee ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors, one of a slew of state anti-transgender laws passed in recent years.

The Trevor Project said it would continue to provide crisis services through its own hotline.

“I want every LGBTQ+ young person to know that you are worthy, you are loved and you belong – despite this heartbreaking news,” Jaymes Black, its CEO, said in a statement. “The Trevor Project’s crisis counselors are here for you 24/7, just as we always have been.”

The government’s decision could cut the number of people the organization serves in half. In 2024, Trevor Project counselors helped about 500,000 people, of which 231,000 came through the 988 line, said Zach Eisenstein, a spokesperson for the organization.

The Trump administration had previously indicated that it wanted to cut funding to 988’s LGBTQ+ section; its budget proposals for the federal health department called for zeroing it out. (The hotline would maintain the same overall funding of $520 million, but not direct any to an LGBTQ+ section, which accounted for a small portion, $33 million.)

However, those proposals were for the 2026 fiscal year and subject to congressional approval. The new announcement makes the elimination imminent.

In May, more than 100 House members signed a letter urging the health department to preserve the LGBTQ+ option, and seven senators signed a similar letter. The Trevor Project is also circulating a petition and running a crowdfunding campaign to try to compensate for lost federal dollars.

“But now it’s the Hail Mary, the true five-alarm fire,” Eisenstein said, “because we only have a matter of days.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.