The call to the Rainbow Youth Project’s crisis hotline came in three days before the election. On the line was a nonbinary teen. The 16-year-old had made a pact with three other queer youths: If Donald Trump won the presidency, they decided, they would commit a “group suicide.”
A case manager chatted with the teen. The high-schooler didn’t want to follow through, and the nonprofit was able to help mitigate the situation, said Lance Preston, executive director of the Indianapolis-based network.
Across the country, organizations and crisis hotlines catering to LGBTQ+ youths and adults have reported a staggering uptick in calls in the run-up to the election and since Trump’s resounding victory.
The Rainbow Youth Project said it has received more than 3,810 calls this month, surpassing its monthly average of 3,765 in the span of six days. The Trevor Project, a group focused on suicide prevent among LGBTQ+ youths, said it saw a 125 percent increase in calls, texts and chat messages on Election Day and on Wednesday, when compared with a regular day. Other groups that work with the LGBTQ+ community, such as OneIowa, said they have seen an increase in emails and messages.
Community leaders said those reaching out expressed a growing sense of loneliness and isolation, worry about losing access to gender-affirming care, and fear of being physically harmed by someone because of their gender or sexual identity. About a quarter of the calls to the Rainbow Youth Project came from worried parents and grandparents, an increase from the 8 percent the organization usually sees.
“We are receiving these calls out of fear,” Preston said. “Fear that we will lose our children to suicide and fear of the challenges this new administration will set up for us.”
For many LGBTQ+ youths and adults, life had already begun to change Wednesday.
Phoenix, a 17-year-old transgender youth who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of being targeted over their gender identity, said they began getting threats and comments from other high-schoolers as soon as they got on the bus Wednesday, mere hours after Trump had made his victory speech.
“As soon as I got on, one kid said, ‘Are you scared? You should be,’” said Phoenix, who lives in Raleigh, North Carolina. “Later I heard a classmate say, ‘I find most gay people annoying, and I hope Trump coming to power will solve this problem.’”
Phoenix reported the student’s comment to their teacher but doesn’t know whether anything will come out of the complaint. Phoenix said many students told them that they were glad Trump won because it meant gas prices would decrease, which Phoenix understood to mean that gas prices were more important than the physical and mental well-being of LGBTQ+ youths.
“At school, all year, kids have been threatening to hurt me when Trump wins, and now that moment is here,” Phoenix said. “I’m feeling really overwhelmed and worried about myself, my family and my country.”
Other trans people said the election result has left them with no choice but to upend their lives and relocate. Throughout the campaign, Republicans spent at least $215 million on network ads that painted trans people as a threat to society. The ads became a rallying cry for a number of candidates, including Trump, who made “Kamala is for they/them” a signature phrase.
Ash Orr, 34, a trans person who works as a press relations manager for Advocates for Trans Equality in Morgantown, West Virginia, said they will be leaving their state as soon as possible for their safety.
“It’s very difficult to come to terms with this decision. I am leaving everything I have ever known,” Orr said. “The decision yesterday made it clear that I can’t be safe here.”
Orr, who is undergoing gender-affirming care, said a secondary reason for moving is a fear that the state assembly will pass a bill banning such treatments for adults. Yet while Orr is able to relocate, they noted that many transgender people in West Virginia cannot. They spent Wednesday afternoon driving around Morgantown, putting up banners expressing support for transgender people to “try and keep our folks going.”
“The overall vibe is that folks are scared and anxious,” Orr said. “We have lived through one Trump presidency before, and we know a second term will impact our human rights and dignity.”
Milo McBrayer, a high school senior who lives in Asheville, North Carolina, has had a tough few weeks, he told The Post on the eve of the election. Watching football with his family — an activity the 17-year-old really enjoys — had become unbearable because of the barrage of GOP-funded anti-trans ads that aired during the commercial breaks in the run-up to the election.
“Seeing so much hatred for my community is hard,” McBrayer, a transgender youth, said Monday. “They are portraying trans people as predators to win votes.”
McBrayer said the hostility was especially troubling because as minors, trans youths have no power to voice their opposition at the ballot box. On Wednesday morning, McBrayer said he was too distressed to discuss the results.
Crisis hotlines had been prepping for a possible Trump win, but they still underestimated how dire the situation was, said Peterson, of the Rainbow Youth Project. Election night was the first time in the organization’s history that a youth in crisis had been put on hold, because of an overwhelming number of calls.
The Trevor Project was also struggling to keep up with the number of people in crisis.
“TrevorText and TrevorChat are currently experiencing long hold times due to the election,” a banner on the group’s site said Wednesday. “If you need immediate assistance, please call the TrevorLifeline at 1-866-488-7386.”
Suicide is the second leading cause of death for 10-to-14-year-olds in the country and the third leading cause of death for 15-to-24-year-olds, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. LGBTQ+ young people are four times as likely as their peers to attempt suicide, according to the Trevor Project.
The organization estimates that more than 1.8 million LGBTQ+ young adults between the ages of 13 and 24 seriously consider suicide each year in the United States, a number that has been on the rise. In the fiscal year ending in July 2022, the Trevor Project was contacted by 230,000 LGBTQ+ people in crisis. In 2023, the number was more than 500,000.
Jaymes Black, the organization’s chief executive officer, said the increase in emergency calls may last for some time: “We anticipate this number will be at least maintained and, potentially, only increase.”
Preston said the trans community is especially scared because the president-elect has threatened to strip gender-affirming care for minors. Out of the almost 4,000 calls the Rainbow Youth Project received this month, 67 percent were from transgender youths or their family members.
Still, he noted that the community is resilient and supportive; Preston said he had 800 emails in his inbox this morning — messages from allies, mental health providers and partner organizations offering support.
For now, teens like Phoenix are leaning on their friends and family for support and remembering to report all threats to their parents, class teachers and school Title IX offices, so that a record can be maintained.
But the worry is constant. Preston said he hasn’t been able to shake the call about the four teens who had made a suicide pact.
“I keep thinking,” he said, “what if that one teenager had not called us?”
