Ending option for LGBTQ crisis hotlines

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NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: the suicide hotline change that dropped an LGBTQ option—and sparked debate over why it was ever there in the first place.

WORLD marriage and family reporter Juliana Chan Erikson reports.

MESSAGE: Dial tone followed by automated 988 voice greeting “You have reached the 988 Suicide and crisis lifeline. We are here to help.”

JULIANA CHAN ERIKSON: This is what you hear when you dial 988. It’s an automated female voice. If you call it today, you will hear two options.

MESSAGE: If you are a U.S. veteran or service member or calling about one, press one.

Until recently, there used to be a third option. It would have asked you to press 3 if you are an LGBTQ youth and want to be connected to a counselor who specializes in LGBTQ youth issues. That option, which began as a pilot program in 2022, ended abruptly on July 17th. A spokesperson for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration—which runs the 988 service—said the 33 million dollars allocated for the LGBTQ youth service had all been spent. The White House did not announce any plans to renew the program.

Plenty of youth pressed 3. When it began in late 2022, fewer than 25,000 callers pressed 3 per month. But shortly before the option ended, that had nearly tripled, with nearly 70,000 contacts in June, its last full month of operation.

Since the option ended, some states have stepped in to fill the perceived gap. California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a $700,000 partnership with the Trevor Project to provide what he called “LGBTQ+ affirming crisis care” for youth in the state. Illinois said it also would increase the amount of counselor training.

BEHRENS: On average, about 9% of the kids that were reaching out were talking about LGBTQ related subjects.

Patricia Behrens is the co-director of 2NDFLOOR, a 24-hour anonymous helpline for youth in New Jersey. She said the percentage of youth contacting their helpline to talk about homosexuality and transgender concerns has doubled since the Press 3 option ended.

BEHRENS: August went up to 10.8 and then now in September, we're seeing 18.3% and our reviews on our message board, where we had seen a pretty steady number of LGBTQ views on the subjects that's posted on the message board, we now seen that that number has tripled, almost quadrupled,

Everyone I spoke with emphasized that the 988 suicide and crisis hotline is still open to youth, even those who have sexual or gender identity issues. They may not be able to press 3, but they will still get help.

But Behrens says more youth who identify as LGBTQ are probably reaching out to state hotlines like hers because they assume they have to go elsewhere to get help.

BEHRENS: It's a matter of you have it, and then when it's gone, it's. Where do you go? Who am I going to talk to and find that out?

But some people don’t think suicide hotlines need a separate option for LGBTQ youth. Elizabeth Woning is the co-founder of the CHANGED Movement, a Christian support group for people who formerly identified as LGBTQ.

WONING: By doing that, saying, oh, we need a youth hotline that is specific for LGBT identifying youth, it's reinforcing a falsehood that somehow LGBT identifying youth who experience depression are facing greater or different challenges than their peers.

Still, LGBTQ advocates say this particular group is four times more likely to contemplate or commit suicide than average youth.

Woning acknowledges the elevated risks, but argues that the care for suicidal young people looks the same, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender.

She says she knows this firsthand. Back in 1998 she faced a crisis of her own.

WONING: I was estranged from my parents, and I had come out as lesbian, moved to a metropolitan area. I was living on the opposite side of the nation from my parents, and found myself struggling with self harm.

So Woning called the local suicide hotline from her apartment in Sacramento, California.

WONING: So I know the feeling of despair, and I'd say hopelessness, but also desperation that goes on when you're when you need to call

Woning said she required multiple hospitalizations and psychiatric treatment. Sexual orientation, she says, was the least of her concerns.

WONING: When you're calling a suicide hotline, you're calling for suicide issues. You know, when I was calling the crisis hotline, I was concerned about surviving my moment. I wasn't concerned whether they knew that I was a lesbian.

Calling the suicide hotline saved Elizabeth Woning’s life, but she says it took years of personal reflection and a renewed understanding of God to heal her completely.

WONING: As I explored experiential Christianity and began to have a spiritual awakening, then a lot of the ideological commitments that I had began to be questioned, and and ultimately I repented of lesbianism and feminism and began moving away from that culture.

She stopped identifying as a lesbian and is now married to a man.

WONING: I had struggled so deeply with bipolar disorder, and during the course of my kind of discovery journey, a lot of the oppressive mental illness that I had experienced fell away. I truly have been changed by the grace of God.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Juliana Chan Erikson.

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