988 For LGBT Youth

I had the misfortune of having to call my representatives in congress this morning regarding the government's plan to cancel the 988 suicide prevention hotline for LGBT youth. I can't say I understand why, but the US federal government is planning to cut ties with the Trevor Project, which until now has serviced callers who pressed "3" for LGBT people below the age of 25. It looks as if they intend to cancel option "3" entirely.

I was once an LGBT youth who struggled with suicidal ideation. So I've decided to write down my experience calling a suicide hotline, prior to the existence of the 988 system.

I called my representative in congress, my state's senators, the speaker of the house, and each of the congressional party leaders and left the following message.

Hi, I'd like to leave a message for representative so-and-so. I have a comment about the government's plan to cancel the 988 hotline for LGBT youth.

I was once an LGBT youth who struggled with suicidal ideation. Long before the 988 system existed there was an organization called Trans Life Line which provided a suicide prevention line for transgender people. Unbeknownst to me, they were undergoing some financial turmoil, and on the day I called them, their phone service was not in operation.

I called and got the message, "Hello, you have reached the suicide prevention hotline, but we are unavailable to take your call. Please call back later". As a undergraduate student at the time, I decided I would go to class, come home, and then call back later. So I went to class, came back home, and called back. Again, I got the message, "Hello, thank you for calling the suicide prevention hotline, we're unavailable to take your call. Please call back later."

"Please call back later". Well, it is later, I already called back later. So I thought, if ever there is a sign that you should take your own life, it must be when the suicide prevention hotline hangs up on you. They might as well have said, "You have reached the suicide prevention hotline, go kill yourself!". So I did.

At least, I tried. Obviously, I was unsuccessful since I'm still here to tell this story. My roommate stopped me, took me to the hospital, and I survived.

I don't want this to be the message that today's LGBT youths hear when they call 988. Please do not cancel the 988 suicide prevention hotline for LGBT youth.

I've long believed that LGBT adults should be the ones to control the narrative regarding the issues of LGBT children. We are the ones who lived the experience that they are struggling through now, and we are the ones who survived. But people seem to buy into the fallacy of "parent's rights". But we forget, or conveniently ignore, that 4 out of 5 abused children were abused by their own parents. We forget that every single LGBT child sent to conversion therapy was sent by their own parents. And we forget that every homeless LGBT child was kicked out by their own parents.

So when we talk about "parent's rights", we must be talking about the parents' rights to abuse their own children. And while just a vanishingly small minority of parents are abusive (mine weren't), most of the narratives around "parent's rights" are abusive: parents have a right to put their children through conversion therapy, parents have a right to ban books they don't like, parents have a right to affirm or deny their child's medically necessary healthcare.

So rather than arguing through the "parent's rights" framework, I would speak as a former LGBT youth. I'm still an LGBT person, but I've aged out of being a youth. So now, I'm doing my best to tell my own story, and in doing so, tell the narratives that today's LGBT youth may not live to tell.

I did not attempt suicide because I am transgender, I attempted because people rejected me for being transgender. And transition did not ruin my life, it saved my life. And if I knew that transitioning was an option at a younger age, I would have taken that option.

I'll leave the reader with the story of another LGBT youth who attempted suicide: Leelah Alcorn, who unfortunately did not survive her attempt. But she left a note which tells how her parents socially murdered her through the practice of "at home conversion therapy".

And if you are an LGBT youth who is struggling with suicidal ideation, try to contact the Trevor Project directly, before calling 988. For as long as they continue to exist, they will be more supportive to you than 988. And failing both of those, leave your note in multiple places, because Leelah's note was deleted off tumblr (but nothing can be truly erased on the internet).