When Rep. Andrea Salinas’ (D-OR) lesbian daughter called her in emotional distress during her senior year in high school, Salinas said she felt heartbroken because she didn’t know how to respond, beyond offering love and promising to reach out to professional experts who could possibly help her through her challenging time.

“It’s scary as hell to be the person on the other line saying, ‘I will get you help,’ when it’s your loved one,” she told LGBTQ Nation, growing emotional. “It’s making me tear up, because, as a mom, you always hope that there is access to care where a professional could help your child move through it. That’s not a lot to ask.”

Now she, along with other members of Congress and mental health organizations, has launched a legislative pressure campaign to restore funding to the 988 national crisis support line’s special services for LGBTQ+ youth. The Trump administration closed the special services line yesterday — Salinas and her cohorts say it’ll cost lives.

On Thursday morning, Salinas and eight other lawmakers, including gay Reps. Sharice Davids (D-KS) and Chris Pappas (D-NH), spoke out against the program’s closure alongside representatives from the queer youth suicide prevention organization The Trevor Project, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). 

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Over 100 celebs beg Congress not to defund national LGBTQ+ youth suicide hotline
The proposal to eliminate funding “will have devastating, life-threatening consequences,” the letter states.

That same day, Salinas and over 100 Democratic House members co-signed a letter noting that suicide is the second leading cause of death among youth ages 10 to 14, taking about 630 of their lives in 2023, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The letter also noted that LGBTQ+ kids are four times more likely to attempt suicide than their non-LGBTQ+ counterparts. Before it shut down, the support line’s LGBTQ+ youth special services program was receiving an average of 2,100 contacts per day. Since its launch in 2022, its counselors have aided over 1.5 million callers.

“That’s 1.5 million reasons why this program works,” Trevor Project CEO Jaymes Black said in the Thursday press conference, noting that the program provided “life-saving, evidence-based mental health crisis care … to LGBTQ+ youth in every corner of the United States.”

“When the legislation for this program was signed into law by President Trump during his first term, Democrats and Republicans came together with unity to address a public health crisis,” Black added, while Republican Rep. Mike Lawler of New York stood behind her. “They unified around the fundamental American principle, protecting our nation’s most vulnerable youth.”

But now, Salinas says Trump has personally shut down the special LGBTQ+ youth services line “as red meat to his base.”

“What Trump is doing is reprehensible. He is literally going to cause lives to be lost — it’s unthinkable,” she said. “I am sure that Republicans and unaffiliated voters and people across the nation do not think of their LGBTQ children or parents or sisters or brothers or friends as political pawns, yet Trump does.”

“[Trump] believes he wins by bringing up culture war issues, and what he is doing like in so many other instances — whether it’s taking Medicaid away from people who need Medicaid for healthcare, or taking nutrition away from people who need food — he is taking away a helpline for people who are contemplating taking their own lives,” Salinas said. “These are people in real crisis.”

Though 988’s main line will continue to provide special services for Spanish speakers and veterans, Salinas said she worries for 988’s crisis support counselors who’ll now have to aid young distressed queer callers without having any specific training on how to do so.

“It’s so important that we have people who are trained specifically to help different individuals from different communities,” Salinas said. “If anyone has ever been in that situation, where someone has reached out to them for help, it is really scary to be the other person on the other end of the line if you are not trained and you don’t know anything else to do but to give love and support.”

Salinas and her colleagues want to raise public awareness so that people tell their Congress members to fight back against the program’s cancellation. As legislators, they hold the budgetary “purse strings” and have a constitutional duty to negotiate appropriations funding packages to ensure taxpayer funds are allocated towards much-needed services, Salinas said.

Toward this end, the Trevor Project has begun a petition — with over 52,000 co-signers as of Friday morning — asking the president and Congress members to restore the program’s funding.

Additionally, Salinas is asking people to share their stories with Congress members: personal stories about people who have needed mental health support — those who received help and those who couldn’t and didn’t know where else to turn.

“I don’t want people to think of members of Congress as shallow and heartless,” Salinas said. “I care. I really care. And my Republican colleagues, I know they care too. I know they have people in their community. And when you reach out and share these stories… it’s impactful.”

“Let your member of Congress know that this kind of funding is important, because it doesn’t take a lot in terms of the funding,” she said, noting that the Republican budget plan seeks to kick 17 million people off Medicaid to give “tax breaks to billionaires.”

“It’s not expensive,” she reiterated. “The 988 system is already set up. It’s just one additional line, and it’s very affordable in terms of the return on investment, when you’re talking about saving lives.” Salinas promised she and her allies would not stop fighting until special services mental healthcare is accessible to all who need it.

Editor’s note: This article mentions suicide. If you need to talk to someone now, call the Trans Lifeline at 1-877-565-8860. It’s staffed by trans people, for trans people. The Trevor Project provides a safe, judgement-free place to talk for LGBTQ youth at 1-866-488-7386. You can also call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.

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