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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Melissa Hellmann

Trump cuts shut down an LGBTQ+ youth suicide lifeline. What happens now?

a person in a blue jacket holds a Pride flag
According to 2023 survey data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 20% of queer youth attempted suicide between 2022 and 2023. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

Becca Nordeen had just left a town hall for the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline when she received some shocking news. As the senior vice-president of crisis intervention at the Trevor Project, a non-profit focused on suicide prevention for queer youth, Nordeen’s team had provided counseling to LGBTQ+ individuals through 988, a national suicide and crisis hotline, for nearly three years. But a few minutes after the meeting, Nordeen received an email notifying her that those services would be terminated in a month.

“There’s an emotional hangover of dealing with the grief and the work of shutting down the program,” Nordeen said. “In the days and weeks that have followed, we have looked at, ‘well, there are still young people who need us, and in our remaining service, how can we be there to meet that need?’”

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