The federal government proposed eliminating funding for the 988 National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline’s program that services LGBTQ+ youth, according to The Trevor Project and multiple media outlets.
A leaked budget draft reportedly revealed the plans to get rid of the Lifeline’s LGBTQ+ Youth Specialized Services starting in October, a program that is funded through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
According to 988’s website, LGBTQ+ communities are disproportionately at risk for suicide and other mental health struggles due to historic and ongoing structural violence.
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The Lifeline has served more than 14 million crisis contacts since it was launched as free and confidential emotional support to people in suicidal crisis or emotional distress 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
According to data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, over 1.2 million of those crisis contacts have been specifically for LGBTQ+ support.
“Suicide prevention is about risk, not identity. Ending the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline’s LGBTQ+ youth specialized services will not just strip away access from millions of LGBTQ+ kids and teens – it will put their lives at risk,” said Jaymes Black, CEO of The Trevor Project, in a statement on the organization’s website. “These programs were implemented to address a proven, unprecedented, and ongoing mental health crisis among our nation’s young people with strong bipartisan support in Congress and signed into law by President Trump himself.”
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The Trevor Project serves nearly half of all the LGBTQ+ youth specialized services contacts through 988, it said.
The organization said that the LGBTQ+ Youth Subnetwork received $50 million in federal funds to provide these life-saving services.
