EXCLUSIVE: Suicide Hotline Operator Pushes ‘Radical’ Trans Ideology In Open Revolt Against Trump Admin
At least one major suicide hotline operator continues sending callers in some states to transgender activists, despite the Trump administration prohibiting the use of federal funds to promote gender ideology, internal documents obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation reveal.
The 988 suicide hotline’s “press 3” option that routed young LGBTQ-identifying callers to transgender activist groups ended in July when the Trump administration announced it would instead “focus on serving all help seekers.” Yet the move hasn’t uprooted gender ideology from a system intended to support the most vulnerable in times of crisis.
Protocall, a taxpayer-funded 988 service provider, tells its employees that “gender affirming care is an appropriate decision for minors.” The company did not respond to questions about its policies.
When a caller dials the 988 hotline, they are routed to their local crisis center or a national backup if the local center is unavailable. Protocall functions as a national 988 backup and operates the state crisis response lines in New Hampshire and New Mexico, as well as holding contracts with public colleges in states like Arizona, Virginia, Pennsylvania, California and New York.
Subcontractors like Protocall, who receive funds from government grantees, must still comply with federal law and executive orders, including President Donald Trump’s day-one order stating funds “shall not be used to promote gender ideology,” a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) spokesperson told the DCNF.
Counselors who work for Protocall are expected to agree with the company’s stances on gender identity — and are tested on their understanding of the issues nearly every three months, former employee Jaime Brooks told the DCNF. Brooks left the company in December after working there for just over a year.
“LGBTQ2SIA individuals, often out of necessity, learn to build community and their own families of choice that we can count on for acceptance, support, and sharing in the jobs and important moments of life,” a Protocall guide on “Supporting LGBTQSIA Callers/Visitors” states. “As crisis counselors, helping individuals identify their supports and possible avenues for finding support (such as through social media, local queer resource centers, queer recovery groups and affirming/queer spiritual and religious organizations) can be invaluable.”
If an adult must be involved in “mitigating risk” for youth, counselors should “ask the youth if they feel safe involving their parent and how we should refer to them with their parent (i.e. it may not be safe for them if we use their chosen name or their pronouns),” the guide recommends.
“We can be creative in considering who is a safe adult in their life who we might be able to involve in safety planning,” it states.
Brooks told the DCNF she was required to review and discuss this document with a group. Quizzes accompany other company trainings, such as a “Trans* 101” training that claims that transgender individuals’ “right to exist, socially, medically and legally, are actively and increasingly legislated against every year.”
“It is deeply troubling that the organization operating our nation’s suicide hotline is pushing a radical, disproven ideology onto vulnerable adolescents in crisis,” Do No Harm Executive Director Kristina Rasmussen told the DCNF. “This taxpayer-subsidized program should provide compassionate, life-saving care to confused children, not send them further down a path that can lead to lasting mental and physical harm.”
‘Unethical Behavior’
In her Dec. 23 resignation letter, Brooks raised issues with the company “distributing resources to minors that facilitate their access to sex rejecting medical procedures and drugs.”
“I no longer wish to be an accomplice to such criminal and unethical behavior,” she wrote, citing recent actions by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that will restrict Medicaid-participating hospitals from offering sex-change procedures to minors.
Protocall Company Trans 101 training (Credit: Daily Caller News Foundation)
A list of resources provided to counselors recommends the Trevor Project, the initial sole operator of the federal government’s LGBTQ youth hotline. The Trevor Project still operates its own private crisis hotline, as well as Trevor Space, an online community that parents have criticized for allowing minors and adults ages 13-24 to discuss topics related to sexuality.
Trevor Space is “a breeding ground for grooming,” Kevin Brown, a former law enforcement officer who founded a nonprofit that identifies victims of human trafficking, warned California lawmakers in June. As a 70-year-old man, Brown was able to create an account on Trevor Space posing as a 15-year-old boy and connect with other users in a chat room, including an individual who wanted to take their conversation to Discord.
The Trevor Project opposes policies that require educators to inform parents if their child is using a new name or pronouns at school, while supporting policies that allow men to use women’s’ bathrooms and locker rooms
The Trevor Project told the DCNF that TrevorSpace, which is separate from its crisis services, “is built with LGBTQ+ youth safety as a top priority.”
“The platform was created for LGBTQ+ young people ages 13-24, and there are safeguards in place to prevent direct messaging between minors and those who are over the age of 18,” the organization said in a statement. “TrevorSpace actively collaborates with leading safety solution organizations to ensure the safety and security of all users, especially those under age 18.”
Protocall’s recommended resource list also includes PFLAG, an activist group that defends irreversible sex-change procedures as “medically necessary” for minors, and the Family Acceptance Project, an organization that develops resources and programs designed to convince families to accept their child’s gender confusion.
Though hotline callers can request to speak with a male or female counselor, their calls are sometimes received by individuals of the opposite sex who identify as transgender, according to Brooks. Young callers who request to speak with a counselor of the same sex often have sensitive concerns about issues like sexual assault and puberty, she explained.
“The fact that the training documents suggest hiding information from parents is both alarming and part and parcel of the gender activist playbook,” Rasmussen told the DCNF. “That the CEO of Protocall has doubled down on DEI, the twin pillar of the crumbling identity politics movement, is further proof that there must be additional scrutiny on the training provided to the people tasked with the critical job of interceding in young people’s times of crisis. It also calls into question why groups like this continue to hold key public service contracts at all.”
‘We Will Not Retreat’
Protocall has pulled in millions from the federally-funded administrator of the 988 hotline, Vibrant Emotional Health, previously known by another name, the Mental Health Association of New York City.
It received nearly $5.85 million in the 2023 fiscal year and $2.67 million in the 2022 fiscal year, according to Vibrant Emotional Health’s tax records. Vibrant Emotional Health did not respond to a request for comment.
Protocall has a contract with New Hampshire worth $10,328,136, effective through June 2027. New Hampshire’s funding for the company draws on federal grants from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), according to the contract.
“SAMHSA funds cannot be used for activities that violate federal law or the requirements set forth in current Executive Orders,” HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon told the DCNF.
“This applies to SAMHSA funding of grantees through subcontractors,” he said. “As of October 1, all SAMHSA grantees, including Vibrant, were required to certify that every federally supported activity complies fully with Title IX, Title VI, and Executive Order 14168.”
Meanwhile, the company’s Chief Executive Officer Phil Evans vowed to resist the administration when Trump took office, reaffirming the “company’s commitment to our ongoing DEl work as well as our unwavering support of our LGBTQ2SIA+ employees.”
“Here at Protocall, we will not retreat from the progress our organization has made, the diversity we’ve built, and the safe community we’ve sought to create for every single person we work with,” Evans wrote in an internal Jan. 27, 2025 email to staff.
“Here at Protocall, we full-throatedly reject this Administration’s efforts to roll back basic civil rights and DEl programs,” he wrote. “Here at Protocall, no executive order from this President, or any law this congress may eventually pass, will change how we choose to treat each other and the culture we seek to create. As a private company, our continued pursuit of these values is outside the purview of this Administration’s agenda.”
Evans did not respond to a request for comment.
Protocall’s website notes that its DEI committee, as well as its “BIPOC and LGBTQ2SIA” groups, help “create and review policies and initiatives.” In an end-of-year Leadership Q&A shared with staff, executives stated that affirming DEI commitments made them especially proud of Protocall in 2025.
“When we stood up and proudly reaffirmed our commitment to DEI when other organizations were forced, or chose, to shrink away from it, and when other organizations had to shut their doors, we were able to open ours even wider,” the internal document states.
Other company guidance recommends “normalizing” adverse impacts of minority stress, validating “unique strengths of LGBTQ people” and affirming “healthy, rewarding expressions of sexuality and gender.”
“Collaborate with the caller about how they want to be described in documentation (‘what would you like me to put down for your gender?’” counselors are told. “Protocall follows the nationally recognized standard that gender affirming care is an appropriate decision for minors and their families, and not in any way child abuse or reportable as such.”
Along with funding it receives through states and the national 988 administrator, Protocall is part of an ongoing federal grant project with a tech company, Lyssn.io, to develop an AI-based tool that helps assess the suicide risk of callers.
“Protocall serves a diverse clientele with an equally diverse community of call-takers,” Lyssn Co-Founder Dr. Zac Imel said in a 2023 statement. “It’s so important that Lyssn’s AI algorithms continue to advance in a way that reflects and honors all providers and clients across the spectrum. Partnering with Protocall to do just that is a step toward that kind of inclusion.”
While the Trump administration pulled the plug on the specialized LGBTQ+ hotline, several states are pursuing alternatives. In Pennsylvania, Governor Josh Shapiro announced state officials would work with call centers to “facilitate LGBTQ+ clinical trainings.”
Trainings ensured centers can provide “a warm handoff to the Trevor Project,” Secretary Val Arkoosh wrote on X.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted Dec. 9 to reinstate the “press 3” option locally.
“SAMHSA plans to issue a new cooperative agreement for its 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline Administrator in early FY26 ensuring that anyone who contacts the 988 Lifeline will receive access to skilled, caring, culturally competent crisis counselors who will help with suicidal, substance misuse, or mental health crises, or any other kind of emotional distress,” Nixon told the DCNF. “Anyone who calls the Lifeline will receive compassion and help.”
AUTHOR
Katelynn Richardson
Investigative Reporter
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