Last month, the Trump administration announced that it will end a federal partnership with the Trevor Project, a nonprofit that provides specialized suicide-prevention support to LGBT-identifying youth through the federally funded 988 Lifeline. The decision, effective today, will terminate the “Press 3” option that routes these children’s calls to Trevor Project counselors and will instead direct all callers to the main hotline.
Like other administration moves, this one has triggered a now-familiar round of condemnation. The Trevor Project, which handled some 231,000 crisis contacts in 2024, called the decision “devastating.” The organization is now crowdfunding to replace millions in expected federal cuts. Critics, including seven senators and more than 100 House members, argue that the change will endanger vulnerable children. New York governor Kathy Hochul has accused Trump of “[t]argeting suicidal kids;” Rep. Dan Goldman, also from New York, claims that the GOP is “willing to sacrifice children for their insidious culture war.”
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Entirely missing from the partisan reaction is a discussion about why the administration ended the partnership in the first place: the Trevor Project’s promotion of gender ideology and sex pseudoscience, especially toward youth in crisis.
The Trevor Project was once widely considered a lifeline for gay teens facing bullying, family rejection, or isolation. But like many well-meaning groups, it has drifted from its original purpose and transformed into a vehicle for advancing radical and harmful ideologies under the banner of suicide prevention.
On its website, the Trevor Project urges children to “unlearn” the idea that humans are male or female and adopt the false view that “gender and sex exist on a spectrum.” It suggests that children who do not fit rigid gender stereotypes—like a boy who prefers ballet or a girl who prefers sports—may actually be transgender, with an internal “gender identity” misaligned with their bodies.
This message is dangerous. Instead of reassuring children that there is nothing wrong with failing to conform to stereotypes, the Trevor Project suggests that children’s discomfort may indicate that they are transgender and were “assigned” the wrong sex or gender at birth. This is the first step in a pipeline that can lead to puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and disfiguring surgeries.
Later, on the same webpage, the Trevor Project states:
If you decide that your current gender or sex just isn’t right for you, you may want to make your gender identity fit with your ideal gender expression and presentation. This is called transitioning, and can include social (like telling other people about which pronouns you like), legal (like changing your name), or medical (like taking hormones or having surgery).
“Transitioning” is not an evidence-based method of suicide prevention. The organization’s promotion of such medical interventions is based on pseudoscientific claims: that “sex exist[s] on a spectrum,” and that children have a fixed, internal “gender identity” that must be aligned with their bodies to resolve distress.
In reality, biological sex is binary and immutable in humans. Conditions of sexual development—so-called “intersex” conditions—while real, are rare medical disorders that do not constitute additional sexes.
The Trevor Project also argues that using a person’s preferred pronouns—including “ze/zim/zer” or even the dehumanizing “it”—is essential for a child’s mental health. This claim pressures peers, teachers, and parents to affirm a child’s claimed gender identity, entrenching a fragile sense of identity and reinforcing in the youth a false belief that he or she was born in the wrong body.
The Trevor Project and its defenders have suggested that to defund their organization is effectively to wish death upon gay teens. But criticizing and even defunding an organization that peddles harmful pseudoscience to vulnerable youth is not remotely similar to opposing help for suicidal kids. In fact, the Trump administration’s move is an effort to protect these youth and ensure they receive the compassionate, evidence-based care that they deserve.
Photo: A Trevor Project Crisis Service Coordinator (MARK RALSTON/AFP via Getty Images)
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