July 16, 2025
Provided Image/Sipa USA
The national suicide hotline's extension for LGBTQ+ youth and young adults will be discontinued Thursday after an order from the Trump administration.
The national suicide hotline's extension for LGBTQ+ youth and young adults will be discontinued Thursday, ending a service that a Philadelphia-area mental health professional called a "lifeline."
While other resources are available, advocacy groups warn that this decision could isolate and further endanger marginalized people.
Since September 2022, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline has offered a "Press 3" option that diverted users to specialists in LGBTQ+ mental health and crisis prevention. On June 17, President Donald Trump's Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration released a statement announcing that the hotline would no longer "silo LGB+ youth services" after the program ran out of congressionally directed funding.
Brian Mullan, a West Philadelphia-based licensed professional counselor with Thriveworks, has focused on treating LGBTQ+ people and other marginalized groups for over nine years. He said his patients' experience with the hotline has been nothing short of essential.
"It wasn't just a call line ... it felt like a lifeline for people," Mullan said. "It really connected people to affirming mental health professionals who could hear them talk about their lived experiences and say 'I get it ... your experience is valid.'"
An estimated 1.3 million people used the service since it launched, with an average of 2,100 contacts each day between February and June of this year, according to a June 25 letter sent to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from four members of Congress, urging the department to reverse its decision.
"The specialized services it provides to individuals with a higher risk of suicidality ... are especially vital to provide high-risk groups with custom support," the letter reads. "Discontinuing this service would be a dangerous step backward and would send a devastating message to LGBTQ+ young people across the country that their needs are not seen, their lives are not valued and that support will not be there in their darkest hour."
The suicide hotline will still continue to service its callers, but experts and advocates believe that the specialized offerings are crucial to ensuring the health of an already at-risk population which has increasingly relied on these types of services.
Internal data with Thriveworks' national mental health services found that searches for specialized LGBTQ+ therapy increased by around 21.5% since the beginning of 2025, according to Mullan. Mark Henson, interim vice president of advocacy and government affairs for the Trevor Project, which is the leading suicide prevention nonprofit organization for LGBTQ+ young people, told ABC News that monthly calls to the service increased from 1,752 in September 2022 to over 69,000 in May.
"Suicide prevention is about people, not politics," Jaymes Black, CEO of the Trevor Project, said in a June statement. "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."
A 2024 assessment into the health needs of Pennsylvania's LGBTQ+ population found that nearly half of the survey's respondents reported consistently having poor mental health and thoughts of self-harm, which often began between the ages of 10 and 14. Mullan said he often sees patients come in with anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, adjustment issues and histories of self-harm or suicidal ideation.
"Taking away this sort of dedicated resource at a time when young people are already facing legislative backlash, social backlash, ostracization ... I think just really sends the wrong message," Mullan said. "It increases the risk of that marginalization and that they won't reach out at all when they're struggling the most."
Other resources are available locally and nationwide as the "Press 3" service winds down. Community organizations such as the Attic Youth Center in Center City provides programming geared toward LGBTQ+ youth. The Trevor Project has 24/7 counseling available via virtual chat, phone or text, the LGBT National Help Center operates a hotline and chatrooms, and Trans Lifeline provides mental health and crisis support.
