Ohio Advocates Respond to Mental Health Crisis Line Removing LGBTQ+ Option

By Olivia Montgomery/Kent State NewsLab

In July, the Trump administration shut down the 988 lifeline’s “Press 3” option, which provided counseling services specifically for LGBTQ+ youth. As of right now, Ohio has no plans in place to mitigate the effects of this closure. 

Since 2005, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline has provided counseling services to those who are struggling with mental health issues or suicidal ideations. In 2019, the lifeline was renamed to the ‘988 Lifeline’ to make it easier for users to remember the number. 

The 988 Lifeline offers different hotlines with specified services for groups of people. For example, there is a hotline directed specifically for people who are hard of hearing, Veterans and Spanish speakers. 

In 2022, the ‘Press 3’ option was launched specifically for LGBTQ+ youth to call in times of crisis. Callers could dial the number 3 and speak to counselors who were trained for their specific needs as a member of the LGBTQ+ community. 

“The primary goal is to create a clear, affirming access point for someone seeking support from counselors who may have specific training or lived experience relevant to their needs,” Stephanie Beougher, communications director for the Ohio Suicide Prevention Foundation, said in an email. “Having a dedicated pathway likely made it easier for some callers to reach out, knowing they could speak with someone who might better understand their perspective.”

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration detailed news of the closure in an online statement. The agency cited a lack of federal funding and a shift in focus for mental health services as the reasons for the closure. 

“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,” the statement said.

The use of the phrase ‘LGB+’ does not acknowledge transgender people. 

Over its 3-year history, the ‘Press 3 option’ routed over 1.5 million calls to local crisis centers for LGBTQ+ youth. 

Information from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Graphic by Olivia Montgomery.

Advocates for LGBTQ+ youth say these services are more important than ever.

“I think that a lot of the policies that are moving through the legislature right now, both at a state and federal level, are really going to harm kids’ mental health,” said Roman Valine, a policy research intern at the LGBT Community Center in Cleveland. “Both in terms of not being able to access the care they need, but also just in terms of seeing so much anti trans and anti queer rhetoric and so much hatred for an integral part of their identities, they need a hotline, and getting rid of that specialized option is very harmful.”

This lack and closure and resources impacts the families of queer youth, too.

“Parents are seeing all of this anti-trans, anti-queer legislation, and it’s impacting them too, to see their kids lose access to the resources that they need to stay alive,” Valine said. “It also might be impacting their families, because their families have to worry about the support that their kids are missing.”

Gay, lesbian or bisexual youth are three times as likely to contemplate committing suicide compared to heterosexual youth, according to the CDC. Transgender individuals are not included in that dataset. Additionally, more than three in five LGBTQ+ youth experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness in the year prior to a 2023 CDC survey. One in five attempted suicide.

“There’s a lot that goes into why that statistic exists. Socially, culturally it’s still really tough out there,” said Svetlana Harlan Communications and Advocacy Manager at Kaleidoscope Youth Center (KYC), a non-profit organization that serves LGBTQ+ youth. “There’s a lot more acceptance, and we see a lot more queer people in society, which is great. But, unfortunately, with that increased attention has also come increased scrutiny.”

Harlan said having crisis counselors who are specifically trained in helping with LGBTQ+ issues is especially important.

“Taking out the training and the cultural competency out of any sort of official description will ultimately have negative impacts, because those providers are not going to always have that training and knowledge to best serve LGBTQ+ youth, because they are facing very specific circumstances and issues,” Harlan said.

When calling the general 988 crisis lifeline, LGBTQ+ youth might have some concerns they will be connected with an operator who is homophobic or transphobic, Valine said. 

“When you call that hotline, you want it to be a safe space, and unfortunately, with how normalized that homophobia and transphobia is these days, when you call in that hotline, those kids might be afraid that the operator isn’t going to truly empathize with them or truly want to help them because of their personal beliefs,” he said. “There would be safety in connecting to a hotline operator who is specifically queer or specifically knows about queer issues.”

With the shutdown of ‘Press 3,’ a few states have implemented new legislation and projects to close that gap.

The state of California has launched a partnership with the Trevor Project, a nonprofit organization focused on suicide prevention in LGBTQ+ youth. Through this partnership, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Health and Human Services Agency are providing specialized training for the counselors on California’s 988 line to better equip them to help with LGBTQ+ specific issues. 

Illinois and Nevada are working to train their existing 988 call line counselors to handle LGBTQ+ issues specifically. Colorado’s 988 line is working to increase outreach to communities and let them know 988 still exists and is open to anyone who needs their services. 

As of right now, Ohio has no similar policy in place, although Ohioans can still call 988. 

“As far as I’m aware, there has not been any specific kind of strategy from the state with the Department of Health to address this,” Harlan said. “So it really has fallen to independent nonprofits, as well as some of those large nationwide nonprofits, like The Trevor Project, to fill in those gaps.”

KYC works closely with other organizations such as Trans Ohio and Stonewall Columbus to display and promote the other resources that exist for LGBTQ+ youth in Ohio. One of the biggest goals is making sure this information is easily available for those who need it, Harlan said. 

“The Trevor Project, the Trans Lifeline, these options are still out there, but they do have limited capacity,” she said. “There’s either hold times or delays, and when young people are dealing with a crisis, having more options and more folks that are trained specifically to deal with those is really important.”

These delays and hold times might discourage people from reaching out to the hotline, Beougher said in an email.

“This could lead to increased feelings of isolation and delays in getting help,” she said. “While the “Press 3” option is gone, it’s important to emphasize 988 counselors are available to provide compassionate support to anyone in need.”

This story was originally published by the Kent State NewsLab, a collaborative news outlet publishing journalism by Kent State students.