Federal LGBTQ+ Youth Hotline Could Relaunch Without Its Primary Advocate

The Trump administration will restore a crisis prevention hotline for LGBTQ+ youth later this year, potentially without involving the leading organization that handled roughly half of its operations.

The Trevor Project, a nonprofit organization that provides suicide and crisis prevention to LGBTQ+ youth, may be ineligible to manage the hotline after being removed from the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline network — a collection of more than 200 local and regional contact centers across the country that are certified to answer mental health crisis calls. Callers could use the “Press 3 option” to access LGBTQ-centered resources, but the Trevor Project lost its active network status after the administration shuttered the only service it provided last June.

Six other crisis centers that also worked on the program remain active because they also work with the general population.

Congress instructed the Department of Health and Human Services to restore the specialized hotline after allocating $33.1 million to fund the service — but only active 988 network members can apply to field calls for the renewed service.

The Trevor Project managed roughly half of the “Press 3” contacts prior to its termination, a spokesperson for the organization said, adding that it has not received any communication about the restoration from HHS nor the 988 network administrator, Vibrant Emotional Health.

An HHS spokesperson said the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration was working to “resume operations of specialized services for LGBTQ+ youth by the end of the year,” but did not respond to questions about the future of the Trevor Project’s role. Vibrant Emotional Health did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trevor Project CEO Jaymes Black said in a statement that the organization’s possible omission raises concerns about whether the “next iteration” of the hotline may exclude transgender and nonbinary youth — populations the Trump administration has increasingly targeted.

“This troubling development indicates a dangerous step toward degrading the clinical standards to serve high risk groups that the ‘press 3’ specialized services were founded on,” Black said. “While anti-LGBTQ+ politics may be altering the very purpose of this lifeline created to help save young LGBTQ+ lives, it is critical to make clear that politics has no place in suicide prevention.”