Trump administration announces closure of LGBTQ+ suicide prevention hotline during Pride month
19 June 2025, 13:43
The Trump administration has said it will close the LGBTQ+ section of its “Press 3” suicide hotline, saying it will no longer “silo LGB+ services”.
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The national suicide and crisis hotline, provided by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), has said they will stop providing specific LGBTQ+ youth services on July 17.
Known as the “Press 3” option, the 988 hotline offers specific hotlines to groups who face a higher risk of suicide.
As well as catering to LGBTQ+ youth, there was also an option available for veterans.
The “Press 3” hotlines offered specially trained, cohort-specific counsellors, often with similar life experiences.
In a statement, SAMHSA said that LGBTQ+ youth would still have access to the wider hotline, but the service would no longer fund specially trained LGBTQ+ counsellors.
SAMHSA has said it “will no longer silo LGB+ youth services” in an effort to maximise the service’s efficiency.
They have said that “everyone who contacts the 988 Lifeline will continue to receive access to skilled, caring, culturally competent crisis counselors who can help with suicidal, substance misuse, or mental health crises”.
The Trevor Project, a non-profit LGBTQ+ suicide prevention group who works with the government on 988, has called the move “devastating”.
“Suicide prevention is about people, not politics,” says Jaymes Black from The Trevor Project.
“The administration’s decision to remove a bipartisan, evidence-based service that has effectively supported a high-risk group of young people through their darkest moments is incomprehensible.”
They have also criticised the government’s decision to omit the “T” for transgender from LGBTQ+ in their statement.
“The fact that this news comes to us halfway through Pride Month is callous - as is the administration’s choice to remove the ‘T’ from the acronym ‘LGBTQ+’ in their announcement. Transgender people can never, and will never, be erased,” Black said.
A 2024 study by The Trevor Project found that nearly 40% of LGBTQ+ youth had “seriously considered” suicide in the last year - and that nearly half of the respondents had not been able to access sufficient mental health care in the same time period.
The LGBTQ+ section of “Press 3” was launched as a pilot scheme by the Biden administration in 2022. Since its launch, the service has received 1.3 million contacts (calls, texts and online chats).
The move comes amid a wider push by the Trump administration to restrict trans and non-binary citizen's access to government support.
As well as calling for an end to gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth, Trump has issued several executive orders designed to roll back pro-trans policy enacted under the Biden administration.
As well as announcing plans to ban transgender troops from the military, Trump also recently signed his "No Men in Women's Sports" Executive Order, which banned transgender women from competing in women-only sports categories.
However, Trump suffered a judicial defeat on Tuesday, when a federal judge blocked an attempt to ban self-identified gender being listed on trans and non-binary citizens' passports.