‘We’re Here for You’: Election-Fueled Calls to LGBTQ Teen Suicide Hotlines Spike

Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

This article is part of The 74’s EDlection 2024 coverage, which takes a look at candidates’ education policies and how they might impact the American education system after the 2024 election.

If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Additional resources are available at SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources. For LGBTQ mental health support, you can contact The Trevor Project’s toll-free support line at 866-488-7386.

LGBTQ youth advocacy organizations are reporting sharp increases in calls to suicide prevention hotlines, with the overwhelming majority of callers saying the election is the source of their fears. In addition to teens and children, the groups say that in recent days they have also been contacted by unprecedented numbers of families and teachers.

Starting Nov. 3, the number of crisis-service calls, texts and online chats received by The Trevor Project increased 125% over the week before, with an additional spike “beginning Nov. 5 approximately around midnight ET,” an organization spokesperson told The 74. Trevor also reported a 200% rise in the number of callers who specifically mentioned the election. 

After former President Donald Trump’s re-election, Trevor posted an advisory note at the top of its homepage: “TrevorText and TrevorChat are currently experiencing long hold times due to the election. If you need immediate assistance, please call the TrevorLifeline at 1-866-488-7386.”

The organization has a number of online resources for youth, caregivers and educators, including guidance on coping with intense emotions around the presidential election, a self-care flowchart and how to signal you are an ally in hostile environment. 

“The Trevor Project wants LGBTQ+ young people to know that we are here for you, no matter the outcome of any election, and we will continue to fight for every LGBTQ+ young person to have access to safe, affirming spaces — especially during challenging times,” CEO Jaymes Black said in a statement to The 74. “LGBTQ+ young people: Your life matters, and you were born to live it.”

The Rainbow Youth Project, which typically receives 3,700 calls a month, logged 2,146 between Nov. 3 and 6 alone. Young people generally make up the vast majority of contacts, but the rate of calls from parents, grandparents and teachers concerned about someone in their family or class jumped from less than 7% of all contacts to 28% during those three days. 

“Most of the time, we take calls from kids in crisis who don’t have supportive families, who are afraid of being evicted or afraid of being outed,” says Lance Preston, the organization’s executive director. “Parents are now calling us about, ‘What am I going to do? What if this turns into a situation like Texas, where if I support my child, I’m going to be investigated by CPS?’ Teachers reaching out and saying, ‘What if I am a supportive ally and my school decides that I [shouldn’t have a] license anymore? Is this election going to create a situation where I could lose my job?’ ” 

The weekend before the election, Rainbow’s hotline took a call from an Alabama 16-year-old who reported he was part of a four-teen suicide pact, Preston says. His colleagues were able to intervene to stop the plan.  

“They had decided that if Trump won the election, that they were going to kill themselves because that meant that the United States people did not want them here and did not want their existence to be accepted,” he says. 

“I’m so thankful that that young person reached out to report that, because we were able to get to the other kids, get their parents involved and do some mitigation and get them some help. But that would have been four kids that we would have lost. That is unacceptable.”

Last winter, the number of calls to Rainbow Youth from young Oklahomans more than tripled after transgender teen Nex Benedict died by suicide following months of in-school bullying. The suicide occurred in February, after a fight in a girls’ restroom that Nex had been forced to use under a new state law.

Nine in 10 callers reported bullying in their school, Preston said at the time. Since the start of this calendar year, the organization has heard reports of nine LGBTQ teen and nine adult suicides in the state. It now operates a crisis support center in Oklahoma City. 

The Southern Equality Project, which offers support services to families in the 25 states that have banned LGBTQ youth health care, also reports a “slight uptick” in requests from families of trans youth: “Many of the requests specifically mentioned fears about Trump, a national ban or needing to leave the country for care,” says Communications Director Adam Polaski. 

Because young people have no experience advocating for and securing LGBTQ rights, Preston says, they are particularly vulnerable to political rhetoric. “They didn’t fight for these rights,” he says. “They were born with them, and now they are seeing them taken away.”

He and other advocates say they expect the volume of calls to stay high through at least February, as a second Trump administration presumably begins acting on campaign promises to end gender-affirming care and curtail in-school LGBTQ protections throughout the country. 

“The best thing for us to do is to accept where we are, but also to send a positive message to these young people that we may be heartbroken, but we’re not broken,” he says. “We need to be putting that positive message out there that we need them to stay with us. They have an army of allies behind them, and we’re going to get through this.”

Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter