Next month, the Trump administration will end a specialized support on the 988 National Suicide Hotline for young LGBTQ Plus callers, a group that has disproportionately high suicide rates.

The administration announced the change by saying the hotline will no longer silo LGBT plus youth services, admitting the T for transgender, and focus on serving all help seekers.

Lindsay Dawson is Director of LGBTQ Health at KFF.

Lindsay, how long has this been an option on the suicide hotline, and how did it come about?

So this became an option early on.

When Congress started 988, they included directions to have a report to study how to best

serve LGBTQ people who do face desperate mental health challenges, including higher rates

of suicidality.

They first piloted the line in 2022,

and then in July 2023 launched the service nationwide. And what's the argument for having

these specialized services? The argument for the service is that because of the higher rates of

suicidality and mental health challenges more generally, due to experiences

like stigma and discrimination, higher rates of violence and loneliness, that LGBTQ youth

and young adults could benefit from a service that specifically meets their needs and challenges.

How many users do we know?

So since the line launched, including in that pilot phase, there have been over 1.3 million

contacts to the service, and those contacts include calls, chats, and texts.

What's the administration saying about why they're doing this?

There's two reasons the administration is saying that this line is being cut.

The first is that 988 overall can handle the calls that the LGP There's two reasons the administration is saying that this line is being cut.

The first is that 988 overall can handle the calls that the LGBTQ service would have received.

And the second is the administration is saying that the service was fostering gender

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