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‘People Will Die’: Shock Over Trump Shutting Down LGBTQ Youth Suicide Hotline Is Growing
The Trump administration is once again drawing criticism during LGBTQ Pride Month—this time for defunding the LGBTQ youth-specific branch of the national 988 suicide hotline, which has supported 1.3 million LGBTQ+ young people since its launch in 2022.
Known as “988 Press 3 Option,” the LGBTQ crisis line has been operated by The Trevor Project—a nonprofit serving LGBTQ+ youth in crisis—since 1998. As the nation’s first suicide prevention helpline dedicated to LGBTQ youth, it will continue to operate independently, but it is being removed from the federal government’s 988 system.
The “Press 3 Option” support for LGBTQ+ callers “was established in 2022 based on a recognition that gay and transgender people experience distinct mental health issues — often driven by family rejection and societal discrimination — and have disproportionately high suicide rates,” The New York Times reported.
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“On July 17, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline will no longer silo LGB+ youth services, also known as the ‘Press 3 option,’ to focus on serving all help seekers, including those previously served through the Press 3 option,” read a statement Tuesday from the federal government’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).
CBS News reports it is “unclear if staff for the specialized option 3 care line will be cut or moved to the general 988 line.”
“This means that, in 30 short days, this program that has provided life-saving services to more than 1.3 million LGBTQ+ young people will no longer be available for those who need it,” said Jaymes Black, CEO of The Trevor Project, in a statement Wednesday. “Suicide prevention is about people, not politics. The administration’s decision to remove a bipartisan, evidence-based service that has effectively supported a high-risk group of young people through their darkest moments is incomprehensible.”
Black called the decision to announce the shutdown during Pride Month “callous,” and blasted the federal government for removing the “T” in LGBT, writing: “Transgender people can never, and will never, be erased.”
But as The New York Time3s also reported, “the White House Office of Management and Budget has previously described the hotline’s L.G.B.T.Q. section as ‘a chat service where children are encouraged to embrace radical gender ideology by ‘counselors’ without consent or knowledge of their parents.’ That language reflects the Trump administration’s broader efforts to eliminate services for and legal recognition of transgender people.”
Earlier this month, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the un-naming of the USNS Harvey Milk, a U.S. Navy ship named for the assassinated veteran and LGBTQ activist who was the first openly-gay man to be elected to public office in California. The decision to announce the plan during LGBTQ Pride Month reportedly was intentional.
RELATED: Pride Month Purge: Pentagon Chief Defends Renaming USNS Harvey Milk and Trans Ban
Critics are blasting the decision to end federal funding for the LGBTQ+ option for the 988 suicide prevention hotline.
“The ‘pro-life’ party is shutting down suicide hotlines,” wrote podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen.
“When folks are in crisis, this admin chooses cruelty over care—every time. But this is the party of ‘family values,’ right?” observed U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX).
“The LGBTQ+ community faces so much discrimination, isolation, and violence that makes them over 4x as likely to die by suicide. Trump’s decision to end the federal LGBTQ+ suicide hotline is absolutely devastating and it’s the opposite of ‘pro-life’,” noted U.S. Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-CA).
“The Trump Administration is wholly pro-death,” declared The Atlantic’s Dr. Norman Ornstein, a political scientist. “As they fan the flames of virulent homophobia and trans-hatred, they cut out the LGBT suicide hotline. People will die. For them, it is a feature, not a bug.”
CBS News cited these support options:
The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline can be reached by calling or texting 988. You can also chat with the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline here.
The Trevor Project’s trained crisis counselors are available 24/7 at 1-866-488-7386, via chat at TheTrevorProject.org/Get-Help, or by texting START to 678678.
For more information about mental health care resources and support, The National Alliance on Mental Illness HelpLine can be reached Monday through Friday, 10 a.m.–10 p.m. ET, at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264) or email [email protected].
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Image via Reuters
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
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