'Lives at risk': Trump's HHS to defund suicide hotline program for LGBTQ youth

The Department of Health and Human Services, under the leadership of President Donald Trump and Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was expected to cut funding for a suicide prevention program for LGBTQ+ youth by October.

The department intended to slash $40 billion in discretionary spending, The Washington Post first revealed last week. A draft document later showed that all funding for the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline’s LGBTQ+ Youth Specialized Services would be eliminated under the plan.

According to Mother Jones, the hotline received an average of 2,100 contacts daily in February alone.

LGBTQ+ youth have a fourfold increased risk of suicide.

“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,” Trevor Project CEO Jaymes Black told The Advocate.

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“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," Black added.

"We urge the Administration to maintain its long-standing commitment to ending suicide among high-risk populations, especially our nation’s young people. We urge Congress to defend its establishment of this data-based, bipartisan program to allow its life-saving services to continue for generations to come. We do not have to agree on every policy issue to agree that every young life is worth saving.”