Trump reopened an LGBTQ+ suicide hotline. But the department that runs it vows to ‘restore biological truth’

For nearly three years, counselors through the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline for LGBTQ+ individuals answered more than 1.5m calls, texts and online chats – until the Trump administration terminated it in July 2025. But now, more than a year later, the service is back online.

The federal agency that oversees the lifeline, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (Samhsa), shuttered the specialized national lifeline service known as the “press 3” option for financial reasons last year, though critics cited political motivations. After pressure from activists, LGBTQ+ organizations, and politicians, Congress approved legislation to allocate more than $33m to services for queer youth, including to the specialized lifeline. While suicide prevention and LGBTQ+ rights groups celebrate the reinstatement, details about the rollout and how the counselors will be trained remain shrouded in secrecy.

According to Health and Human Services (HHS), the department “remains fully aligned with President Trump’s Executive Orders to defend women from gender ideology extremism and restore biological truth to the federal government”, a spokesperson said in a statement to the Guardian. But LGBTQ+ rights groups and allies question how the department’s directive will affect the service’s inclusivity. HHS did not respond to repeated requests for details about policy changes to the service. The Guardian messaged the press 3 option through its live chat function following its reinstatement, during which a counselor offered gender affirming sentiments, asking questions such as: “what makes you feel most yourself and affirmed in your identity?” Toward the end of the chat, the counselor encouraged remaining in “spaces where you feel seen, heard and most definitely the safest”.

Members of Congress such as Senator Tammy Baldwin and Representative Seth Moulton, who pushed for the press 3 option, applauded its reopening, stating their intention to continue fighting for its preservation. Following the shutdown of LGBTQ+ services last year, the 988 national lifeline remained, with counselors continuing to offer specialized services for veterans and field calls from all populations. Queer youth are more than three times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual and cisgender peers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2023 survey data.

“For 14 months, ‘Press 3’ was shuttered because President Trump and RFK, Jr. made a choice to put politics over people and cut off life-saving services for young Americans. I worked hard to force the Trump Administration to do the right thing and follow the law that I wrote to restore specialized services for LGBTQ Youth,” Baldwin, a Democrat from Wisconsin and the first out gay person elected to the US Senate nearly 15 years ago, said in a statement to the Guardian. In 2020, she authored the legislation that created the national lifeline, and has helped lead the congressional push to reinstate the service for LGBTQ youth over the past year. “While ‘Press 3’ is back online, I’ll continue fighting to protect and strengthen 988 to make sure that when Americans are in crisis, the help they need and deserve is available.”

The Trevor Project, a nonprofit focused on suicide prevention for queer youth, was at the forefront of the shutdown last year as one of several groups contracted to field calls from LGBTQ+ people. The nonprofit helped pioneer the service a few years ago, offering training to counselors on supporting callers’ gender and sexual identities. However, the Trevor Project was shut out of the most recent iteration of the press 3 option because the organization was considered an inactive member of the 988 network.

Upon the termination of the service last year, the Trevor Project lost a $25m federal contract and let go of more than 200 counselors. But the organization’s privately funded suicide prevention lifeline continued amid the shutdown, partially through a campaign that raised more than $20.4m from about 26,000 donors. Mark Henson, the organization’s vice-president of Advocacy & Government Affairs, said that it was impossible to ascertain how the press 3 closure affected the privately funded lifeline’s call volume.

“While we can’t directly speak to what the new services look like, we know from our nearly 30 years of providing crisis intervention services for LGBTQ+ youth that best-practice care requires continuous improvement and clear standards,” Henson said in a statement to the Guardian. “We have seen statements that HHS remains in alignment with anti-transgender executive orders. We are uncertain about whether or not the executive orders in question impact the inclusivity of services being provided.”

Along with its own fundraising efforts, the Trevor Project also launched a petition to protect the press 3 option that garnered more than 54,000 signatures. The organization also partnered with agencies in Illinois and California to train 988 Lifeline counselors in supporting queer youth in those states.

The sustained advocacy over the past year “speaks to the support and the recognition of communities that are disproportionately at risk for suicide, and ensuring that when they call or text 988, or when they’re in crisis, they have trained counselors that are culturally responsive, and affirming to their unique needs”, Laurel Stine, the nonprofit American Foundation for Suicide Prevention’s executive vice-president and chief advocacy and policy officer, said.

“The restoration is not the end point. It’s not the end of the conversation. That advocacy continues because of the sustained investments that are needed in 988 and specialized services that people can rely on when they reach out and need help in a crisis.”