The Trevor Project, a leading LGBTQ youth suicide prevention organization, said calls and text messages to its crisis intervention hotline had risen by a third on President Trump’s Inauguration Day, an increase the group described as “significant” and concerning.
The Trevor Project’s crisis services, including phone calls, text messages and online chats, saw a 33 percent increase in volume on Monday, the day Trump was sworn in as president, compared to the average call volume of recent weeks, the group said Tuesday.
“No matter your political beliefs or how you feel about the current administration, one thing must be made clear to all of us living in the United States: real young people’s lives are at risk – and we must take immediate action to support LGBTQ+ youth,” Jaymes Black, the organization’s CEO, said in a statement.
“Suicide prevention transcends politics,” Black said. “And we are sounding the alarm for all lawmakers, community leaders, and adults who care about the health and survival of young people in their communities: The political targeting of LGBTQ+ youth – and transgender and nonbinary youth in particular – must stop.”
In November, The Trevor Project said crisis contacts rose by an unprecedented 700 percent on Nov. 6, the day after Trump’s decisive victory over former Vice President Harris and a string of election wins that saw Republicans retake control of both chambers of Congress.
Trump and Republicans made transgender people and issues central to their campaigns, pouring millions into television ads that hit their Democratic opponents over their past support for trans-inclusive policies.
Less than two weeks into the 119th Congress, House Republicans on Jan. 14 passed legislation to bar transgender athletes from competing in girls’ and women’s sports at schools, inching closer to fulfilling a key Trump campaign promise. On Monday, Trump signed a sweeping executive order targeting transgender rights and rolled back LGBTQ nondiscrimination protections instituted by the Biden administration.
Trump also rescinded a Biden-era executive order allowing transgender people to serve openly in the military, clearing the way to potentially reinstate his 2018 ban on transgender troops.
On Wednesday, Trump slammed a service he attended Tuesday at the National Cathedral that asked him to “have mercy” on LGBTQ children and immigrants. He wrote Wednesday in a post on Truth Social that Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde “is bad at her job” and called her service “uninspiring,” “nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart.”
“The so-called Bishop who spoke at the National Prayer Service on Tuesday morning was a Radical Left hard line Trump hater,” he wrote. “She brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way.”
