Crisis Hotlines See Surge in LGBTQ+ Callers After Trump Victory

LGBTQ advocacy organizations have reported a flood of calls and chats to their crisis communication hotlines after Donald Trump won the election this week, following a campaign that was rife with anti-trans attacks.

The Trevor Project, a nonprofit that provides mental health crisis services to LGBTQ people, reported a nearly 700% increase in reach-outs to its crisis services on Nov. 6, the day after the election. The organization said it saw “significantly high outreach from LGBTQ+ young people needing support in direct response to election results.” One-third of those who contacted its crisis services after the election identified themselves as Black, Indigenous or people of color, the organization said.

The day after the election, The Washington Post reported that the Rainbow Youth Project, a nonprofit advocacy group for LGBTQ youth, had received more calls in the first six days of November than it receives in an average month.

Trump’s vow to strip trans people of their rights was a big part of his election pitch. He flooded airwaves with ads targeting trans rights and vilifying trans women in sports. Republicans have also spent much of the past few years enacting legislation to curtail trans rights and demonizing trans people.

NBC News exit polls show that a huge majority of gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender voters surveyed supported Harris in this election, while fewer LGBT voters cast their vote for the Republican candidate in this race than in any of the three previous presidential elections. Yet after a stinging defeat, some Democrats have suggested that the party should not be “pandering to the far left” — a proposal that my colleague Hayes Brown called “an instinct based on fear that should be rejected loudly and firmly from all corners of the party.”

Transgender Americans have said the president-elect’s relentless attacks on their community are taking a toll. A high school senior in North Carolina told the Post on Monday that it was hard seeing “so much hatred for my community.” Austin Johnson, a research director at the Campaign for Southern Equality and a sociology professor at Kenyon College, told The New York Times of the Trump-backed anti-trans ads, “There’s a bit of shame, or embarrassment, like a loss of dignity, when I’m watching one of those ads, knowing my friends or my colleagues are also watching it.”

Research has shown that trans adults experience higher rates of suicide and suicide attempts than their cisgender counterparts. A study by the Trevor Project found that between 2018 and 2022, there was a significant increase in suicide attempts among transgender and nonbinary youth in states where anti-trans laws were enacted, with those younger than 18 years old experiencing the sharpest increase in suicide attempt rates.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or chat live at 988lifeline.org. You can also visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional support.

If you are an LGBTQ young person in crisis, feeling suicidal or in need of a safe and judgment-free place to talk, call the TrevorLifeline now at 1-866-488-7386 or the Rainbow Youth Project at 1-317-643-4888.