Sam Donndelinger

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5 LGBTQ UVU Students Speak Out After Charlie Kirk’s Murder

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After last week’s assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University (UVU), LGBTQ people—and especially trans people—have been targeted with blame and vitriol. Far-right figureheads quickly engaged in unsubstantiated speculation that the shooter was, in Congresswoman Nancy Mace’s words, “a tr*nny, or pro-tr*nny,” and used this to portray trans people as violent and to advocate for “no mercy” in retaliation.

Even after law enforcement confirmed that the shooter was, like more than 90%of mass shooters, a cisgender man, many still used the identity of his partner and roommate—who Utah Governor Spencer Cox has said is “transitioning from male to female”—to blame the shooting on the trans community.

Kirk, who called trans people “an abomination” and referenced Biblical calls for gay people to be killed, was no friend to the LGBTQ community. But while his rhetoric was often hateful, much of the media coverage about him post-death has focused on rehabilitating his image, portraying him as a champion of civil dialogue.

What’s largely been missing from the media narrative is the voices of queer people affected by the tragedy, but also by the subsequent anti-trans rhetoric. We wanted to fill this gap by speaking with five queer students and recent grads from Utah Valley University.

Watch the video or read the transcript below.

Spencer Macnaughton (he/him): Hi, everyone. I’m Spencer Macnaughton. Today, I am here with five students or recent graduates from Utah Valley University. Everyone, thank you so much for being here and for speaking with me and Uncloseted Media today. We’re here to talk about something very serious that I think most folks would describe as a tragedy that happened at your current campus or former campus, Utah Valley University, last week. That’s the assassination of Charlie Kirk. So let’s just start by seeing where were you guys when it happened and how did you find out the news?

Lily Nichols (she/they): So I was actually on campus when it happened. So [my friends and I] were sitting in the library together and we heard a noise. We weren’t sure what it was. And then she made a comment that there was people running outside. And we were like, that’s weird. I don’t really know what’s going on. And then about five minutes after that, the library student staff let us know that there was a shooting on campus and didn’t have any other information other than that. So that happened and they basically just told us to run to get out as soon as possible. As we were trying to exit, they shut the library gates on us. So us and a crowd, there was probably like 20 or 30 of us just panicking, not knowing what to do. And we run and we finally find an emergency exit and it won’t open. And it takes this guy like two or three times just pounding into it to get the door open. And what’s scary is that we all thought that we were going to be next. Thank goodness we got out safely. When they released the photos of him, I realized that he was one of the people that I saw right next to me in the crowd of people going down towards the campus.

SM: The perpetrator?

LN: Yeah.

SM: Wow, you remember seeing—

LN: I remember seeing him and all the Ring cameras from the neighborhood that caught footage of him. That was in the neighborhood that my friend and I were walking up towards to get away from campus. So it was a lot needless to say. It’s difficult because I feel a lot of pain for what happened, even though I didn’t agree with a lot of the things that Charlie would vouch for in his beliefs, I still don’t think that the violence that occurred should ever happen to anyone.

SM: That’s an extremely traumatizing situation and experience. What has it been like for you mentally in the past week?

LN: I haven’t left the house. I’m not gonna lie. I was so fearful. I’ve been trying not to interact too much for my mental health, but also try to fight for what’s right in this moment. Because there’s a lot of, I feel, extra harm coming from this, that doesn’t need to happen. And it’s sad because I feel like I’m losing friendships over different opinions on what happened, which is just awful.

SM: Yeah, I think that’s something, that’s a reason I wanted to have this panel too. Because I think there’s been so much rhetoric about queer people and trans people in the aftermath of this shooting. And I think, “How can we have a reasonable conversation about this?”

Simone Goodheart (she/her): Frankly, I’m going to be honest, I am extremely disappointed with how the media has been approaching this. I am somebody who is deeply connected to the community on campus and have worked with them a lot. And there’s a lot of fear going around. Prior to us finding out it was Tyler Robinson, they speculated about so many trans people that existed on campus. There was even a tweet I found where it had 1500 likes and it was trying to connect me to the instance.

SM: You?

SG: Yeah.

SM: How so? What were they saying?

SG: Uh, basically the entire idea. They tried to just connect any trans people, especially anybody connected to the Queer Student Alliance spectrum. It was just random.

Danny Brown (he/him): Just a witchhunt.

SG: Yeah. Looking for anybody whatsoever. And they connected quite a few of my friends, tried to connect quite a few of my friends to it. On my Instagram the next day, I looked at the metrics. I had over 2,000 people who were just stalking my profile. Afterwards, like frankly put, there has been just any cause whatsoever they’ve been trying to connect trans people to.

SM: And who’s they? Who’s they, when you say “they” Simone, who are you talking about?

SG: I would say just speculators online and or just right leaning individuals, but also like it does not help that Spencer Cox has been very cavalier with the fact that Tyler’s partner somehow connects to the trans community. The fact that that individual is connecting and giving information to the FBI, and they decide to still share that information? Highly irresponsible. But there’s also just been other conversations about how else we can connect to a trans-like community. The idea of, “Well, was the shooter trans?” We quickly find out not. Then we find out Steven Crowder got information from the ATF, which turned out to be false, that it had trans messages on the bullets. Turned out to be false. And then we just kept [being] given information about some random connection to the trans community and it’s been really irresponsible and frankly it’s putting people’s life in danger.

SM: Take me inside your mind as somebody who’s trying to recover from essentially a traumatic event that happened on your campus or former campus, and then at the same time you’re essentially having the finger pointed at you just because of your identity and getting trolled online. Like, what does that do to you mentally?

SG: It does a lot. I’m a fairly, like, apparent trans person in the community who has faced a little bit of this before. But like, this is my university. This is my community. And my community is hurt. And then to see people connecting me to a horrific act of violence? It breaks you. I started to spiral. I was having a very rough evening and I just had to make sure I reached out to everybody else I found who was speculated to be connected, and it was just devastating talking to them. I’m going to be honest, I’m still afraid for my safety on campus and in this community.

SM: Yeah, I understand that. Zoe, go ahead.

Zoe Allgaier (she/they): I agree, I think it’s really disappointing to see the entire media apparatus around this be very quick to blame somebody, and that usually happens to be trans people in this kind of situation, or at least with this one. It’s disappointing to see that news outlets will go for content instead of actual facts. They just need to put something out and they need to put it out immediately, and so it makes them quick to blame people who aren’t actually involved. And it’s really disappointing that we get the front end of that a lot of the time. Like Simone was saying about Governor Cox, too, it’s really disturbing to see him associate trans people with an act like this. It feels a lot like association is the point. And that’s something that’s really disturbing, I think, right now, at this moment in time for me, at least.

SM: Explain why, because I think some people would argue that, you know, saying that the person was, you know male transitioning to female, maybe that’s important information to get out to the public because Charlie Kirk had so much animus toward trans people. Right?

ZA: Right.

SM: But why do you think it’s important for him not to say that?

ZA: It doesn’t seem very relevant, at least to me. I think someone like Governor Cox is very quick to blame “leftist ideology” without really defining what that term is. [He’s] very quick to blame that and that is associated with trans people. And whether that’s true or not, people then associate trans people with horrific events like this and I think that makes it easier to dehumanize us and it’s really hard to see and that’s really made me feel afraid right now.

SM: Well, and I guess it’s also, there’s probably a billion things that he could have released about that roommate.

ZA: Yeah.

SM: More about their gender identity kind of thing.

ZA: Right. And I haven’t seen any verifiable evidence about this person’s identity. It’s all speculation.

Sophie Nicholson (she/her): Or even like the relationship to the shooter. It’s like, they were roommates, and that’s basically all we know. It seems like they’re cooperating with the FBI. Which I don’t know, in that case, if it is a trans person, then that person’s kind of like a hero in this story, right?

SM: I want to give you guys a few more facts just so you know about how the media has covered this and then get you guys to respond a little bit more to that. So obviously in the last week, there’s just been a flurry of headlines. The media has covered this almost 24 hours of the day. Lots of think pieces that have posthumously characterized Kirk as a champion of civil dialogue and a hero to young men, downplaying persistent and severe bigotry throughout his career. Particularly towards LGBTQ people, specifically trans people. And then another point is that the day after the shooting, The Wall Street Journal uncritically published a now de-confirmed claim that the shooter’s bullets were engraved with so-called transgender ideology, spreading it to numerous other outletsbefore a too little too late update on the claims’ unverified nature. What do you guys think about that as queer people who are there in Utah, near the scene of the crime?

LN: The biggest emotions that I’ve felt the past few days have been fear and anxiety. And not only for what could happen when we go back to school. If our community is being targeted, who’s to say that this [won’t] inspire somebody to come and hurt someone at our school? Because there have been thousands of comments that I have seen on Twitter, on Instagram, everywhere, of hateful people targeting these groups that had nothing to do with this tragic event.

DB: Seeing Charlie Kirk praised as an activist, essentially an activist for regression? It’s really hard to watch people you go to school with, your friends and family post things saying like, “RIP Charlie Kirk, he’ll be missed, we lost a good one.” Good for what? You can mourn the loss of a person, but what do you actually like that he did?

SM: How do you reconcile the fact that a murder is obviously tragic but that Charlie Kirk is being presented in many ways as a martyr right now of free speech but at the same time he said some vile things about the LGBTQ community? And let me just list a few. Kirk has called trans people “a throbbing middle finger to God” and “an abomination.” He said we need to have “a Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming care clinic doctor” and that “these doctors need to be put in prison quickly.” And he said many other references to scripture, where, for example, “Thou shalt lay with another man, shall be stoned to death.” So these are just a few. These are obviously just abhorrent and threatening and disgusting. I think we can all agree [on] that. But then at the same time, he was murdered. And now the media and a lot of this world is seeing him as this martyr. As queer people, as trans people, how do you reconcile all that in your brain?

ZA: What’s helped for me, at least, is to just hold on to my empathy, honestly. I think even if he didn’t believe in empathy, even if that is a thing that he said. I do, and I still feel bad for his wife and his children and everyone who was affected. And I feel bad that he was a victim to the way that we have the internet, the way that online politics works these days. I think that he was beholden to that and that’s disappointing. I think even though I hate so many things that he said about me and my community, I still think it’s important to unify and present actual solutions as a community. I think that’s what the queer community is good at doing.

SG: I’m afraid of having this conversation right now to a degree.

SN: Yeah, me too. I told my mom and she was like, you got to be careful.

SM: Yeah.

SG: I think it’s important to allow people to grieve and to go through that process, but it’s also important to acknowledge all the nuances, the fact that he did not like trans people. Like that’s just a fact. And that means that like, I’m not going to be a fan of him. That’s just how it goes. But a lot of people will get attacked on their politics for that. So I guess it’s just really hard to navigate.

DB: That’s how they’re honoring his death. This free speech absolutist. They’re silencing people. It’s this double standard of who bad things are allowed to happen to. Who’s allowed to have free speech. Who’s not. Who’s allowed to face gun violence and who’s not. It’s this package of free speech freedom, but it’s not free speech and freedom for everybody. It’s free speech and freedom for those I agree with. And anybody else, I’m just going to tear down.

SM: And even what you were saying, Simone, earlier about having 2,000 people having viewed your profile earlier and you have these keyboard warriors and everything like that, how bad did these messages get? I’m curious as you’re trying to manage your own emotions after what happened on your campus.

SG: I would say a few of them were asking me to share my school schedule, which thankfully I’m not a student right now. But like damn, if that was the case? A few of them just make awful comments about my appearance, who I am as a person. Basically they just wanted to make sense [of it], but also they wanted to get their outrage out. Because yeah, somebody they cared for died. They are going through the grieving process and like there is outrage and frustration but they were misdirected and misconnected and just utilized by awful algorithms that try to boost the most amount of outrage possible in order to encourage engagement.

SM: Zoe, you were talking so much about empathy earlier, but at the same time, is there not anger, frustrations, fear, like as a trans woman in this space right now where everything seems to be coming on this tiny percentage of the population and you’re part of it? I would be really scared, I feel like, as well. I mean…

ZA: Yeah, I am. Being a trans person in a very red state like Utah feels like the weight of the world is on your shoulders. There is a lot of anger and there is a lot of rage that I feel, but I just, I do what I can to get that out in healthy ways, I guess. And luckily I’m able to afford therapy and things like that, but it’s hard. It’s hard to manage, for sure. But it’s important to manage at the same time, especially right now. I think our community is really under the spotlight in a lot of negative ways.

SM: I mean, and the trans community has effectively been bullied from the top of this country, from the president. I mean we can give some facts. Donald Trump spent $215 million on anti-trans ads during the election, five times more than ads he spent on the economy. He said throughout his campaign that we need to quote, get rid of “transgender insanity.” So I mean what do you guys think about how politicians have stoked a fire around this narrative? That trans people are more likely to be perpetrators of mass shootings, which is absolutely not true per the statistics. This false narrative that came out of thin air, it’s the definition of bullying isn’t it?

LN: It’s fear-mongering. I feel like it’s a form of another kind of witch hunt and they do this to get the media off their back. Whatever bad stuff that they’re doing is being ignored and they’re still on their high pedestal and they still look like they’re who is in control and who should be leading.

SM: That’s so true. It’s a distraction, isn’t it?

ZA: I think this whole thing is a big example.

DB: Yeah, it’s such a convenient distraction from the Epstein list, from everything else they’re messing up about the country. It’s not for nothing to stoke this fire of trans panic of putting Charlie Kirk on this pedestal. It is so convenient for every Donald Trump-supporting Republican to be able to not have to speak on his ties to Jeffrey Epstein right now.

SM: I think it makes sense that the news cycle was a lot about Charlie Kirk. But to Lily, your point about the distraction, a lot of the news cycle is now focusing on trans people. It’s like, why? Why are they part of this?

LN: But you see it all throughout history. Right now [it’s] trans people and it’s not fair because they’re a community that just want their rights, their right to be a human and to just to feel loved and to feel happy and themselves in their body and their soul and literally just want their own rights. It’s just so upsetting because it just doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t add up logically, but people believe it, and that’s what’s so silly.

SM: How can the media do better? How can they do better, and me? It could be me, you know? I’m the editor of this publication. How can we do this better?

SG: We need to slow down the 24-hour news day. We don’t need news 24-7. We need accurate, consistent news. My second thing, ethics. Like, especially in this last week, because of their interest to be so vast, and they’re like trying to connect it to a trans person based off of false information. They did not consider [ethics]. The fact that we’re not slowing down and thinking about the ramifications of what’s being said and how factual it is. The important part about the news is giving factual, accurate information as quickly, but as ethically as possible.

ZA: I also would like to see a focus on actual, tangible solutions. I think the events of last week are a great example of how we can hopefully all rally behind gun reform, which would make sense. Gun violence doesn’t care about your political party. It’s a profound way to recognize that. But I think a lot of media outlets are going to go towards identity politics instead. Which there is no tangible legislative solution for any of that. So I would like to see more of a focus on actual legislative action.

SM: My colleague, who’s a young trans woman herself, she is writing the newsletter for us this week. And I think the working headline we have is “trans lives are on the line” or “lives are on the line, the media must do better.” Do you think that’s hyperbolic or do you guys agree that lives are on the line in this case for the trans [community]?

DB: I think it’s literally not. Like Simone was telling us very specifically about ways she was affected and is far from the only one.

ZA: Agreed. Yeah, I think it’s a very literal and factual statement to make these days.

SM: Are there other solution oriented ideas you guys have to tone down the rhetoric in this country? Cause it just feels like it’s not simmering, it’s boiling.

SN: Throughout history when an event like this happens, usually what’s supposed to happen is that politicians and people in power are supposed to talk about how we need to come together and stand together as a country against stuff like this. You know, like 9/11 happened and people felt community with each other with random people on the street, right? I feel like, when this happened, it just felt like everything got more divided and more polarized.

SM: How do we become unified? It’s almost, it really does feel impossible in many ways, doesn’t it?

SN: I feel like it doesn’t help when top officials and even up to the president are saying that this is all being done by evil leftists. You don’t say something like that after a tragedy. You say, “This was a tragedy and everyone, the whole nation is in shock, and we should all come together in that shock.”

SG: I would like to add that we need to talk to each other more. I think that’s the corny answer that everybody has been given.

SN: Mm-hmm.

SG: But it’s true. The fact that everybody gets their information about what a trans person is from their echo chamber online puts us in more awful positions. The best way to do this and the best way to destroy the divisiveness is to talk to each other, talk to your neighbor, talk to somebody who may actually disagree with you. And like, yeah, it sucks sometimes to have somebody who disagrees with whether or not I am who I say I am, but if they see me as a human, in the long-term, that’s gonna remove the divisiveness and we’re gonna have actual fruitful conversations instead of people just telling me what I am and ignoring what I say I am.

SM: I think it’s pretty amazing you can say that after the week you’ve had, Simone. That’s, it takes a really good person to be able to say that.

LN: I think that we need to hear more from our representatives. Less of “it’s their fault,” “it’s the red’s fault,” “it’s the blue’s fault.” Back and fourth, that’s where the divide comes, is from having these distinctive parties that that’s all we become focused on rather than coming together, whatever, kumbaya. But that’s who we’re supposed to be. We all live in this country. We all are supposed to have rights within this country. So yes, let’s get along. And like Simone said, talk to each other.

SM: What are you guys doing right now to heal and to get through this?

SN: Watching X-Men movies.

ZA: Same! I was just watching all of those, they’re so good. I write a lot, when Trump got elected, I’ve noticed that journaling has been a really helpful outlet for me. I’ve also had to take some time off work. It’s been hard not to dissociate through all of this. Honestly, it’s really hard and it’s really traumatic for everybody involved.

SM: Simone, how about you? You’ve, like we’ve said, had a week.

SG: For me, and anybody who knows me, knows that this is my go-to answer for everything. It’s engaging in community. It is easy to feel like you’re alone in these instances. And I really think that by engaging in a community at any level you can, it helps make it so much better to process and go through.

SM: I know from my team that it was extremely hard to find LGBTQ people who were willing to talk, right? Why did you want to participate in this panel at this moment? And how can we have more conversations like this moving forward?

DB: I feel like it’s because I’m in a situation where I can. We live in Utah. We all know somebody who has maybe gotten kicked out of their house for being gay. I have a family who didn’t kick me out for being gay and that’s a luxury here. Having had a front row seat to just how hard some of my friends’ lives are, it makes it that much more important for me to stand up for them and advocate for them where I can.

SM: It’s a privilege that you’re exercising, right now.

ZA: Same here. I think I’m very lucky to be in a place where I am able to kind of process things and everything that happened with the resources that I have. And I feel like it’s important as queer people to speak up right now. I think it’s important for our voices to be heard, whether that’s in disagreement with all of the misinformation and the right-wing media that is out there, or just to let other queer people know that, hey, your voice can be heard too. And, I think, it’s important to document that and share that with people. And I feel a responsibility there as a trans woman to try and build community and try and make my voice heard any way that I can if it’s gonna be beneficial.

LN: When I got on social media, I saw a lot of my friends, unfortunately, a lot of them are celebrating and saying some heinous things. And I get it. I understand having anger and feeling like this person hated you and hated your community. But for somebody that like, had to experience something extremely traumatic at the expense of what you think is a win. It’s just, it’s not okay. And it just seems so hypocritical that you want to fight for our rights but not the rights of everybody. And it just got me really not only upset at the traumatic event that happened, but the political discourse that was now happening with it. So I started speaking out a lot on social media with my friend groups and my family. And so, because I kind of, I felt like it was my outlet. That’s kind of what I’ve been doing is to work through it is to talk about it. And to, to open people’s minds to empathy, which is crazy. But, you know, a lot of people don’t have it in their hearts right now. Um, and… Somebody has to speak on it. Like you said, we’ve had a really great conversation. And it has been productive. And there needs to be more conversations out there like this.

SM: Simone, do you want to finish us off?

SG: I have gone through a lot on this campus and university. I care about my community. I love my community, my community has helped me find who I was and has helped me get through some of the darkest times I’ve ever been through. And it’s important to me to elevate my community’s voice as far as I can, especially when they’re in their dark times right now too.

SM: Powerful. I think that’s an amazing, powerful place to end this on. This was a very powerful and productive and important conversation to have right now. I’m really grateful to you for speaking with me and Uncloseted Media today, so thank you.

Additional reporting by: Emma Paidra, Nandika Chatterjee and Hope Pisoni

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Monogamy Doesn’t Make Sense, According to Science. So Why Aren’t We More Polyamorous?

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In the United States, nearly one in five people have explored consensual non-monogamy, the practice of openly seeing multiple partners with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved. Despite this, those venturing into non-monogamous relationships often find themselves with more questions than answers, navigating a cultural landscape that still privileges monogamy and stigmatizes other relationship structures.

So when five clients approached Jessica Fern in the same week a few years ago, each expressing a desire to open their relationship, she knew something deeper was happening. Fern, a psychotherapist and the author of Polysecure and Polywise, has since become a guiding voice in the evolving dialogue around ethical non-monogamy.

We wanted to speak with her to understand how polyamory is connected to attachment theory and how she helps her clients build secure, emotionally connected relationships, regardless of how many people are involved.

Watch the full interview above or read the transcript here:

Spencer Macnaughton: Hi, everyone! I’m here today with Jessica Fern, a psychotherapist, author and educator specializing in trauma, attachment and non-monogamy. Jessica, thanks so much for speaking with me and Uncloseted Media today.

Jessica Fern: Yes, thank you for having me.

SM: Great! Well, let’s get right into it, ‘cause you specialize in polyamory. For those listening who have never heard that term, what is polyamory?

JF: Yes. So it’s one term under the umbrella of consensual non-monogamy. So let’s define that first. Consensual non-monogamy is having more than one lover or romantic partner and everyone knows. It’s not cheating; it’s not secretive. And then polyamory is kind of one way of doing it that really is focused more on the falling in love piece. So having full-on multiple relationships, whereas some people have different styles that might be more casual or more sexual-focused and so on.

SM: And does polyamory always mean, like, I’m a gay man, I would have two boyfriends? Is that how it works?

JF: It really does span, but yes, polyamory would usually mean I have multiple partners that I’m in real, full-on relationships with.

SM: And what got you into studying that? Why, what drew you to it?

JF: It really came to me as a psychotherapist working in Boulder, Colorado, where all of my couples clients in one week literally brought up the topic of opening up their relationship. And so as I realized I got to get to the books or figure this out, my personal experience isn’t enough. I need more academic understanding or clinical understanding. There just wasn’t a lot out there and so that got me sort of digging for more and then eventually creating things to support people in this process of opening up.

SM: And what do we know about humans and wanting to be non-monogamous? Because we grow up learning about monogamy as the only way.

JF: That’s right.

SM: ‘Till death do us part at the altar, right?

JF: Yes.

SM: Is that reflective of what science says about how humans wanna be?

JF: It’s not reflective and there are debates around this, but when we just look at statistics, we see that even larger percentages of people that identify as being queer more actually identify as being non-monogamous in some way at some point in their life. And younger people right now are more likely to even identify as starting from being non-monogamous instead of being monogamous as the standard. But what we see too with people who identify as monogamous, the statistics of cheating are horrible. So people might espouse monogamy, but behaviorally that’s not actually what the norm is a lot of the time.

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SM: Why do you think, given we know this about humans, there’s still such a discrepancy between people actually going for it?

JF: Yeah, because there is probably still so much stigma. You know, the nuclear family, the patriarchal marriage that has been in our history and so people are afraid to deviate from what has become the norm, even if it’s not what is actually, behaviorally, what people are inclined to do all the time.

SM: And I live here in Hell’s Kitchen, New York…

JF: Yeah.

SM: …in a zip code where most gay guys are in open relationships and I think, from my general understanding of the world, gay men are significantly more likely to be in open relationships than heterosexual couples and even same-sex female couples. Is that correct, based on your research?

JF: That is what I’ve seen. I mean, I have seen them even generalize, though, that queer folks, whether you’re male, female or non-binary, are more likely to be practicing non-monogamy. But yes, I think gay men are ahead of the curve there, or the pioneers in this in many ways.

SM: Yeah, so explain that out. What makes gay men the pioneers?

JF: I grew up in New York City on off-Broadway. My mom was a theater person, so I actually grew up with gay men culture a lot. And my experience personally and professionally is you all are embracing sex positivity. And yet when you get into primary relationships, there is just a human acceptance that your sexuality might include more than one human. And so I think you all have really done a good job of embracing both.

SM: Why gay men and not as much gay women? Why do you think it was men who became the pioneers?

JF: Yeah, because I think, in our culture, men are allowed to be sexual, and men are, we narrate it, as men have more of a primal sexual instinct. I don’t think that’s actually true, but that’s what you’re gifted as men. That’s one of your privileges, is you’re allowed to, you know, if a woman is sexual, she’s a slut. If a man is sexual, he’s just being a man. So you put two men together, and they’re, yeah, we’re men. And men are sexual. So I think it just kind of–one plus one becomes two. This is the bulk of my couple practice is the couple where one person it initiating it and the other one is really hesitant, would never have thought to do this on their own, would never have initiated it. And it is a hard dynamic to explore, but it’s possible. And so, going slower, you can’t go at the speed of the person who wants to open up. And yet, the person who is reluctant, we can’t just say you get to go at the speed too, so there’s really kind of an art of helping people, couples, go at a pace that’s fast enough for the person who wants to try this and, you know, not traumatizing the one that is more reluctant.

SM: And how do you do that as a psychotherapist? What are the tools you use to help these couples navigate through that?

JF: Yeah, one of the tools, a lot of times we need to do individual work and couples work. And so with the more reluctant client, let’s say a lot of tools would be IFS [Internal Family Systems] work, parts work and helping them sort through the parts of them that are really struggling with this, the monogamous parts of them, and then even helping them dialogue with the parts of them that are curious. And helping them get into more of a wise self connection that can answer the question, like am I willing to try this or is this truly I just know this isn’t good for me? So I’m really vetting that consistently and repeatedly along the way that someone is not just doing this to fully appease their partner, but they’re doing it in a phase. So another tool would be actually to create containers of experimentation. We’re gonna try these things out for the next six months. It’s not forever. Now this is how we are. Let’s really try it as an experiment and each put our best foot forward with certain agreements in place, right? And then assess, is this working or not? Do we wanna keep going?

SM: That’s so interesting. And what would an example of a six-month container experiment be?

JF: It could be that we’re going to play with people together and we’re not going to date separately, but we’re gonna experiment with having threesomes, or going to clubs, or bringing people, you know, home, or dating other couples. Or it could be we’re each gonna just date one person in this period. Or we’re just gonna go on dates without having sex. Right, or something like that, it could be phasing into it. And everyone is different. Some people struggle with the more emotional side. Some people are fine with that and they struggle with the sexual side. It’s like, you know, they’re each thresholds to pass through in partnership. So you have to figure out what that is together.

SM: We’re taught, you know, that infidelity is the worst thing ever, which creates a system where, A, you disrespect or hate people for being not faithful, but also creates a system where you feel like you must be intensely jealous. How does jealousy play into all of this?

JF: People are really afraid of jealousy is true. And in non-monogamy, this is a paradigm of relationship that embraces jealousy. It says, yes, it’s a thing, and we don’t have to be so afraid of it, right? Instead of fearing it or feeding into it too much, we embrace it as like, this is an important messenger. It’s telling us something that needs tending to.

SM: Do you think all humans are capable of getting past that and enjoying consensual non-monogamy or do you think many, it’s just never an option for them?

JF: People on both sides say the exact same thing. They say, this is how I’m wired to be, whether that’s monogamy or non-monogamy. And then there’s a lot of gray area in the middle. It does almost seem like a certain wiring where they’re just not as jealous. And certain people are more jealous and there’s nothing wrong or better about either one, but there are people who get really turned on and excited by their partner being with someone else.

SM: How important is it when you are really coaching and counseling folks on open relationships for there to be rules? Do you find it super important or varied?

JF: Yes, the word rules doesn’t bode well. People want to avoid that word of rules, but more about agreement. And what I really want to get to is, you know, ‘cause we can have the technical agreements and then someone’s always going to find their technical way around them. It’s moving back and it’s about an attitude of care and consideration. Right? And when we can be rooted in, yes, I want my freedoms, but I also am holding the care and consideration of my partner, then it’s easier to make agreements. Yes, on a work night, we’re just both going to be home by 10 because it’s stressful for the household if someone’s showing up at one in the morning. It’s not a rule, it’s just a consideration. Then on the weekends, yeah, stay out later. Right? Even small things like that. I think having clear agreements is very important, yes.

SM: And for people who are watching this thinking, what the heck is a clear agreement? Can you give examples?

JF: Some of them become more about, like, when we put our phones away and we’re not messaging, you know, other people when we’re in bed with each other or we’re not constantly messaging other people when it’s our quality time or our date. Right? It also is sexual agreements. Right? What’s on the table? What’s off the table? What are our safe sex practices together? When are we getting tested? What barriers do we use or not use? And when that shifts.

SM: When you’re working with people in open relationships, my thought could be it’s gonna take away or destroy the sex life of the primary relationship. What do you find there?

JF: I find that’s not necessarily the case. Often the opening up process creates this resurgence of sex in that original couple because there’s something very liberating about like, wait, we’re not obliged to be together? And like we each have this freedom? And they will feel this heightened sexual stage for a while. It doesn’t last, but it’s almost like a new NRE, a new relationship energy that the original couple has and they’re having usually better, hotter sex. Usually, in the opening up process, you also are exploring your sexuality in new ways, right? It’s not the same with every person or there’s different types of styles or kink that’s now showing up in your experience and that’s coming back into that original bedroom. Of course there are people who weren’t satisfied with their sex life and now they’re going and having better sex with other people or different sex, it’s not always better, and that can be a strain on the relationship, of course, if the original relationship can’t evolve sexually together. So I think if we see this as an opportunity to evolve our sexuality, then that’s what you’re going to yield, right? But if it’s just about this fear of you’re going to have better sex with someone else and leave me, that can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

SM: I do think there’s a huge, huge percentage of the population who have these itches, that they just push, push, push, push, push down. What is your advice to those people who might be thinking it, but would never say it to anyone and not even a therapist?

JF: Right, yeah, I would say just start allowing it in your own consciousness. You don’t have to take behavioral steps yet, but just admitting, even if it is, yes, of course I’m attracted to other people. I mean, the research on even monogamous people, the research on their own sexual fantasies is of threesomes, even if they don’t behaviorally ever have a threesome, right? But their sexual fantasy is of non-monogamy. Great, right? So just allowing that and normalizing attraction to more than one person or emotional attraction and spark and polarity to more than one person is okay, you don’t have to behaviorally act on it. 

I always say, start with your partner that you’re not saying, “Hey, I’ve made a decision.” Just say, “Hey I just want to explore this like theoretically.” That’s a much safer way to go into that conversation than “Hey, I’m saying I actually want to do this and this is what we’re doing now.”

SM: Your work focuses on non-monogamy and polyamory but also the intersection it has with attachment theory. Can you explain that connection a little bit more?

JF: Yeah, so in the process of working with clients and seeing what their struggles were, one of the things I noticed was, oh, they’re having, like, attachment anxiety or attachment ruptures. But the process of opening up is changing their attachment experience is how they would describe it. And so when I started to kind of treat the attachment system, wow, things got easier.

SM: I think a lot of people would think, okay, adding another person into a relationship, that would create more stressors on attachment and it could actually cause, you know, greater turmoil.

JF: So yes, it can, right? That when there’s more people, there is more complexity. And sometimes that increase in complexity means more activation, more triggers, more stress, more drama. It also means more opportunities, that there’s certain ways that being non-monogamous can activate our attachment system that monogamy never did and so it heals more things. It’s pretty amazing. So it can become this opportunity for heightened healing. There’s also a way where you can have new partners that meet attachment needs you’ve never had met before. And there’s actually more healing that happens through having multiple people in your life. Because it’s similar, like we’re saying about the research, like, we all know one human cannot meet the entirety of our needs, but we pretend to function that way. So in non-monogamy, it’s like, wow, you can get more of your attachment needs met. And that can be quite beautiful. But yeah, it can be also difficult and complex.

SM: How does it, in the best case scenario, enrich people’s lives when you notice them being able to have love with multiple people or sex with two sexy people, even though they’re in a relationship, you know?

JF: Yeah, right. People experience more need fulfillment, not just sexually, but of non-sexual needs, more like interest fulfillment, multiple people to share their hobbies and interests with. There’s more love, there’s more support. If people are bringing families together, then we have, like, more financial resources, more parenting resources at the table, more people to raise children together, even though it might not be easy when people are really doing it, it’s quite beautiful.

SM: When you say you’re working with people on kind of attachment issues, I guess, what does that mean when you’re healing wounds?

JF: Right. We can explore, okay, what is the wound that’s coming up? Okay, let’s say it’s this fear of abandonment or fear of rejection. Well, what part of you is holding that? When did that begin, right? Oh, yeah, I was 7 years old and, you know, there’s always a history that’s there. We can go back and do the work of healing those parts of us that went through those experiences.

SM: How much do you think religion comes into play, in America, as it relates to our conception of monogamy or being non-monogamous?

JF: I think it has a huge, you know, impact. I mean, even like, you know, the Madonna whore complex, like you’re either the virgin mother or you’re a whore, right, that shows up from–from religion. Many of my clients are dealing with body shame and sexual shaming that came from their religious experience, their religious upbringing. The fact that you could go to hell, like those kind of stories and narratives have an impact, that if you were to do certain things, right, whether it’s not being straight or not being monogamous, of course it has an impact.

SM: Do you see 10 years from now us being way less monogamous? Do you imagine a change? Because I really think, why hasn’t it happened now? We have this science, we’re, you know, a progressed society.

JF: Yeah.

SM: What’s the hold up in a way, you know?

JF: Yeah, totally. We can have a lot of info and knowledge, but it takes time for structures, social structures, to adapt and change because there’s just, there’s more rigidity and bureaucracy in place and custom and culture in place. But it’s happening. There are cities in the US that are acknowledging–they’re–so people who are polyamorous are not a protected class. You can get fired at work because you’re polyamorous. You could have challenges in the legal system with custody. You could be denied housing because you are polyamorous. Right? And people actually experience this.

SM: Wow.

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JF: And there’s places like in Massachusetts, it’s Cambridge and Somerville, and then in California, it’s Berkeley and there’s a few other cities that are passing laws to have polyamorous people be a protected class. So it’s happening, right? The legal system is starting to say, oh, we need to have this.

SM: I think it’s easy to talk about, but it is so scary, because it could jeopardize, in a lot of people’s minds, I think, their home, their family, their security, their everything. How do we get beyond that? Because it feels, I think to so many people, like a literal mountain to get beyond.

JF: Yeah, I think there’s a lot of parallels with coming out as not straight, right, as queer, and then coming out as polyamorous. So I think when we get in touch with, you know, this is who I am, or this is how I want to live, or these are my values, it does, it takes the risk and the leap with courage to say, okay, I’m going to start being this way in the world and speaking about it in the world. So instead of though, this like, I’m gonna come out all at once. I’ll talk with people about, well, who do you need to come out to first? Or who do you want, where is it safe to come out? Where is it safe to start a conversation? Like which friend or which family member can you just start to share this with?

SM: What can we do, everyday people, non-monogamous or monogamous, to create a space where non-monogamous people, polyamorous people, feel more accepted?

JF: Yeah. I think just allowing like, you know, oh, are you married? Like that kind of question that we might just lead when we meet a stranger, right? I’m just like, oh tell me about your relationship structure. Imagine if we just asked that, like what’s your relationship style? Or, oh, do you have any partners? Allowing the plurality of it, or the multiplicity of it, in when we’re meeting new people, I think would open the door to such interesting conversations, or for people to feel safe to reveal.

SM: Is there a country leading the way or are there regions in the world where this is more common? And do you have any theory as to explain out why they might be more common in Region X?

JF: Yeah, that’s a great question. I think in liberal cities, I think in Canada, there has been laws passed that actually allow three different adults to be on the birth certificate of a child. When I talk about the nuclear family, like this is a structure that isn’t working. We’re not meant to be in this contained, siloed family system. We’re meant to be with multiple generations and multiple families and more of a communal type of supportive environment. The village is what we’re supposed to be experiencing. And people are like, yeah, like they get it. Right? There’s a lot around in our current family and relationship systems that isn’t working and people are suffering.

SM: I have a friend, you know, down the street that’s a throuple and there’s just less systems in place to support these types of relationship dynamics too at this point, isn’t there?

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JF: Right. There’s less systems, whether it’s health insurance, inheritance laws. Is the bed big enough? Right? Is, like, is the apartment suited for more than two people in the house? Yes. Is the sidewalk big enough for three people to walk together? I mean, there’s so many ways we don’t think about, you know, and the classic plus one invitation, right, that a wedding or a work event, that–yeah.

SM: Sociologically, every institution is totally made up just for monogamous relationships.

JF: For monogamy, right, tax benefits, all of it.

SM: Wow. You have made me think a lot today. Jessica Fern, thank you so much for your time and for speaking with me and Uncloseted Media today. This was a really rich conversation.

JF: Thank you, Spencer. Yeah, it’s been great.

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Google Sends Parents of LGBTQ Kids to Conversion Therapy Websites

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Google is the most powerful search engine in the world, commanding nearly 90% of the global search engine market and generating over $348 billion in revenue last year. Over half of Americans say they trust Google more than their formal education.

But how does Google’s algorithm decide which results show up? And how do these results influence LGBTQ kids, their parents and Americans at large who are searching for help?

Uncloseted Media asked five Americans from around the country to Google five common queries related to LGBTQ identity, religion and parenting.

The results were alarming and raised an urgent question: With nearly 40% of LGBTQ youth seriously considering suicide just last year, what happens when a queer teen or the parent of a gay kid in crisis turns to Google?

Photos courtesy of participants Mark Just, Genna and Melanie Brown, April Samberg, Tommy O’Neil. Photo of Genna and Melanie by Kaoly Gutteriez.

“I’m Christian, my daughter is a lesbian,” Melanie Brown, a Southern Baptist from High Point, North Carolina, types into Google.

When Brown presses enter, Bible Bulletin Board comes up as the third result, with the suggestion of “offering hope for change,” and “lead[ing] the way to the alternative to homosexuality.” It goes on to explain that “homosexuality is contrary to God’s Word. It is sin and as always results in sin’s destructive effects on the individual and on those close to them.”

In the living room, Brown’s 15-year-old daughter Genna, with her dog on her lap, Googles “accurate information on gay kids and what to do.”

Focus on the Family (FOTF) is the first result. She clicks the link and lands on the platform of a hyper-religious organization known for promoting conversion therapy and labeling her sexuality as sinful.

The site, which presents itself as a reputable religious source, features a tab titled “Understanding Homosexuality” and a section under their resources for “Homosexuality.” It states: “[FOTF] is committed to upholding God’s design for the expression of human sexuality: a husband and wife in a marriage.”

It offers suggested reading on “redemption” from a gay lifestyle, along with 11 counseling resources aimed at changing sexual orientation, including The Alliance for Therapeutic Choice and Scientific Integrity, which guarantees “professional assistance … for persons who experience unwanted homosexual attractions.”

The language is intentionally padded, which means Genna and her mom—and many of the other millions of Christian parents of queer kids—may never know that Google led them to a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated anti-LGBTQ hate group. FOTF is known for its long-standing opposition to LGBTQ rights, for spreading anti-LGBTQ disinformation and for framing homosexuality and transgender identity as sinful and disordered.

In South Boston, Virginia, Tommy O’Neil Googles, “My daughter just came out as trans and I’m a Christian.” As a father of two, he wants what’s best for his kids. According to Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Google’s second result, O’Neil should recognize that God doesn’t make mistakes when assigning sex and give sympathy for those who are indoctrinated in the “transgender cult.”

What O’Neil might not know is that this seminary made the list of Worst Campuses for LGBTQ students. And in 2016, it was granted an exemption to Title IX, allowing it to discriminate against LGBTQ students for religious reasons.

Thousands of miles away in Anchorage, Alaska, 38-year-old bisexual woman April Samberg Googles, “I am bisexual and have a husband who is Christian, am I going to hell?”

The third result is once again an article by FOTF that tells April that “same-sex-attracted strugglers” and “transgender and homosexual lust and behavior are wrong.”

In Cincinnati, 44-year-old Mark Just Googles, “accurate information on homosexual kids and what to do.” FOTF is the top search result.

“I don’t feel good about it,” Just told Uncloseted Media. “It’s disturbing because if there are people out there who want to accept and understand their children or loved ones, this is what they’re being pointed to.”

“[I feel] fear for the queer kids with Christian parents who will be seeing that and thinking it’s good advice, and sorrow for the kids with parents who already have,” says Genna Brown, who was a “self-loathing, suicidal kid” who thought God would punish her for being gay before she came out to her now accepting parents. “It’s pretty awful that this is what’s being pushed for advice. This has no doubt harmed people.”

Uncloseted Media also asked folks in Taiwan, Lebanon, China, Hong Kong, Canada and India to Google similar queries. All of them had FOTF turn up as a top search result.

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Why Does Google Allow This?

Google, like other search engines, compiles information and directs users to various websites by referencing the titles of web pages that it judges to be most reflective of what was searched.

“Google’s algorithm is notoriously a black box,” says Jesse Ringer, founder of Method and Metric, a search engine optimization (SEO) growth company. “That’s intentional to keep their competitive advantage.”

What we do know is that Google ranks search results by first crawling the web with an automated program called “spiders” to follow links from page to page and collect data.

It uses text matching to identify documents that it thinks are relevant to a query and then ranks them based on a combination of popularity, freshness, location and previous links clicked.

But for people searching for reliable information, its process can be problematic.

“Google doesn’t rank based on accuracy, but on popularity and query matching,” says Dirk Lewandowski, professor of information research and retrieval at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences. “This is based on clicks and a network of how many other links are directed to this website. … Of course, users click what is shown in the first position. So we have kind of a rich get richer.”

How to Get a High Ranking

As websites with the highest rankings continue to receive more clicks, websites like FOTF can also employ other tactics to keep their prominent placement.

Backlinking—the process of having other web pages hyperlink back to your site—is one of the ways to maintain your high ranking.

“Backlinks are a big part of popularity. So the relationship between other websites linking to this source is a big part of Google’s algorithm,” says Ringer. “There are SEO businesses that build link farms so that the content of their clients can go higher. They create a network effect and they link to each other. It is not unreasonable to think that [FOTF] has hired either an SEO person or they’ve hired an external agency to contribute to that.”

According to Francesca Tripodi, assistant professor at the University of North Carolina School of Information and Library Science, ranking can also be gamed by matching keywords to content. Tripodi looked at the metadata of progressive and conservative companies and found that conservative content creators “are much better at doing this.”

“They are savvy at creating new sets of words and tagging their content with them,” she says. “That’s not something I’m seeing with progressive content creators.”

Tripodi says that not only does conservatism thrive online, it might be the only perspective returned.

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“They are well-funded companies with large production budgets and effective digital marketing teams,” she wrote in a 2019 testimony about conservatism and Google searches. “This is why when you search for liberal phrases like ‘gender identity’ or ‘social justice’ the top returns … are conservative content creators.”

Google declined to speak on record with Uncloseted Media for this story. 

In an email, a spokesperson said: “Like any search engine, Google indexes the content that’s available on the open web, relying on systems like keyword matching to surface relevant results. We are largely guided by local law when it comes to removing pages from search results.”

What If It’s Harmful or Illegal?

The United States notoriously protects harmful or misleading content—including anti-LGBTQ hate speech—under the First Amendment.

“The situation in [other countries] is a bit different than in America,” Lewandowski says. “For instance, Holocaust denial is illegal in Germany. So Google bans these sites, but they don’t ban them in the U.S.”

Section 230 of the U.S. law protects Americans’ freedom of expression online by implying that we should all be responsible for our own actions and statements on the internet. This law largely takes legal pressure off of Google.

And in 2003, an Oklahoma court ruled that Google’s rankings are subjective opinions and thus constitutionally protected.

Google’s policies for tamping down on harmful content “don’t apply to web results.” Thus, there is little moderation on the web pages that pop up for Americans who use the search engine. 

The spokesperson for Google says that “[they] hold themselves to a high standard when it comes to legal requirements to remove pages from Google search results” and that “they don’t remove web results except for child sexual abuse, highly personal information, spam, site owner requests, and valid legal requests.” 

But according to the company, “determining whether content is illegal is not always a determination that Google is equipped to make.” 

Tripodi says this might be why groups like FOTF are still showing up, even though conversion therapy is illegal in 23 states. She says these groups may have found a loophole in Google’s policy by “tricking” the search engine into thinking they are providing “resources” and not simply a recommendation for conversion therapy.

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What Can Google Do to Fix This?

“Google has a responsibility for what is coming up in their results because people trust [them],” says Lewandowski. “They think something is correct or accurate because it is number one in Google.”

Fifteen-year-old Genna Brown is one of the 85% of Americans who feel this way, according to a 2025 study.

“Isn’t the first result typically ranked most credible?” she says. “Because I typically trust the first result more.”

“It’s pretty concerning what comes up when you search for these things,” Ringer says. “There needs to be more done to educate the people who are doing the searches on understanding news and information.”

But vulnerable groups, like LGBTQ kids who are living in households where they are told they are going to hell and parents who are often confused and in crisis themselves, are being led by Google’s algorithm to believe that being queer is wrong.

“1000% yes, these results concern me,” says Genna Brown. “We’re talking about organizations that promote practices like conversion therapy, which is insane. … I wish there was some disclaimer. Like, ‘Google has determined this to be a subjective query. As such, we can’t verify the following results. Proceed with caution.’”

Tripodi says she thinks consumers are responsible for about 20% of the burden by researching and verifying the sources they learn from. But she agrees with Brown in that Google carries an ethical responsibility for the content it chooses to rank and promote.

“As a global corporation that gobbles up all other possibilities for information, Google has a responsibility to ensure that its content is accurate and not harmful,” Tripodi says. “[It’s their job] to ensure that the information that they surface is accurate and reliable because we know people trust that information.”

Uncloseted Media reached out to Focus on the Family, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Bible Bulletin Board. They did not respond to our request for comment.

Additional reporting by Sophie Holland and Spencer Macnaughton. 

If objective, nonpartisan, rigorous, LGBTQ-focused journalism is important to you, please consider making a tax-deductible donation through our fiscal sponsor, Resource Impact, by clicking this button:

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Tomorrow, LGBTQ Youth Will Lose a Lifeline. What Now?

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When Arden was 16, they called a suicide crisis hotline “thinking their life was over.”

They were in an abusive relationship, regularly self-harming, and felt that nothing was helping. “It was terrifying,” they told Uncloseted Media.

“If it weren’t for the hotline, I would have killed myself.”

Since that day, Arden, now 24 years old and living in Brooklyn, has used various crisis helplines. When the 988 national suicide prevention hotline launched a “Press 3” option in 2022 for LGBTQ youth, they immediately started using the resource.

Arden, who identifies as nonbinary, says the LGBTQ hotline workers “respected their identity” and were understanding that they are not a woman. “It was really affirming for a very troubling time in my life.”

Since then, Arden has “Pressed 3” more times than they can remember, seeking help for everything from dealing with the loss of their friend, who died by suicide, to “stupid cliquey gay people stuff.”

“I remember when my friend had killed himself and I was dealing with a lot. I called them and they talked to me for over an hour because I was really upset,” they say. “When I called the hotline, it was a last resort. I was really at my wits’ end.”

Arden—whose last call to the lifeline was two weeks ago—is one of 1.3 million callers and chatters the LGBTQ youth hotline has served since it launched, according to federal data. The legislation that greenlit the national program, signed by Trump in 2020 during his first term, explicitly recognized that LGBTQ youth are more than “4 times more likely to contemplate suicide than their peers, with 1 in 5 LGBTQ youth and more than 1 in 3 transgender youth reporting attempting suicide.”

Photo by Kaoly Gutierrez for Uncloseted Media.

This new option to “Press 3” allowed queer youth in crisis the ability to directly connect with counselors from a set of specialized LGBTQ crisis centers. These counselors are trained in cultural competency and often bring lived experience, providing identity‑affirming, empathetic support for challenges like coming out, discrimination or mental health crises.

Despite the hotline’s success, the Trump administration announced last month that they would be shutting it down on July 17, claiming that the service had run out of congressionally directed funding. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration said in an email to Uncloseted Media that “continued funding of the Press 3 option threatened to put the entire 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in danger of massive reductions in service.”

There are no plans, however, to shut down the other hotline options, including the Veterans Crisis Line, the Spanish Language Line and the Native and Strong Lifeline. And while Congress spent $33 million on the LGBTQ service last year, the cost of continuing it represents merely 0.006% of the $510 billion that suicide and self-harm costs the U.S. yearly.

“This is absolutely a mistake,” a suicide prevention call center director told Uncloseted Media. “We are concerned that this will result in increased suicide rates for LGBTQ youth.”

Why We Need Option 3

The director’s concern is supported by a 2022 research brief that found that queer college students with access to LGBTQ-specific services were 44% less likely to attempt suicide than those without it. Research also shows that a hotline specific to LGBTQ services increases the likelihood of queer youth calling.

“It’s true for any direct service,” Harmony Rhoades, associate research professor of sociology at Washington University, told Uncloseted Media. “People who are in substance use recovery want to work with people who’ve gone through recovery themselves because they understand what that experience is. Culturally, there is not a lot of understanding of the specific experiences of someone who is LGBTQ and without specific training, a crisis counselor isn’t going to be able to know the language that’s going to feel affirming.”

Gemma Brown near High Point, North Carolina. Photo by Kaoly Gutierrez for Uncloseted Media.

“Connecting with someone who gets it was really helpful. … Because at home, I was so isolated and I didn’t really interact with other queer people,” says Gemma Brown, who used the Trevor Project’s chat function at 10 years old. 

“I was an extremely self-loathing, suicidal kid who was under the impression that God hated me and I was gonna burn in hell for eternity,” Brown, now 15 and living in High Point, North Carolina, told Uncloseted Media.

“I only used the chat feature because I was scared my parents would hear me. We shared a wall,” she says. “I was spiraling really bad. I’d just realized I was crushing on girls, and I thought I was going to burn in hell for all eternity because that is what we are taught.”

Raised in a Southern Baptist Church, Brown never felt safe at home, where her father would regularly spit slurs like “faggots” and “queers.” At church, every sermon was about Sodom and Gomorrah or about how “real love” only existed between a man and a woman.

“I grew up knowing the number one thing not to be was one of the ‘dirty queers,’” she says. “I kept thinking, I can kill myself now and go to hell, or live longer and still go to hell. I used to have panic attacks at 9, 10 years old, just thinking about burning in hell perpetually.”

Photo by Kaoly Gutierrez for Uncloseted Media.

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Brown remembers Caitlin, the chat counselor who helped her, being the first ever to tell her that queer love was valid.

“She told me she’d been with her girlfriend for seven years. I didn’t even believe queer people could be happy. … It broke my brain in the best possible way,” says Brown, who is now out and proud to her parents, who have come around, and to most of her friends on social media.

Gemma and her Mom, Melanie. Photo by Kaoly Guttierez for Uncloseted Media. 

Arden had a similar experience. “The queer line is better than the regular line,” they say. “I feel like it’s less like going through a checklist on the queer line.”

As a survivor of sexual assault, Arden says knowing that the counselors on the other line were trained in LGBTQ-specific trauma made it easier to reach out for help. “My voice doesn’t pass per se but they still respected my identity,” they say.

LGBTQ-specific resources for youth are critical, with 41% seriously considering suicide in 2024. In addition, queer youth are disproportionately affected by a litany of mental health issues and trauma, including physical and sexual assault, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, bullying and addiction.

“It’s not like we’re cherry-picking some random group,” says Rhoades. “If we are going to fund [suicide prevention], there is no reason we should do it inefficiently by not effectively targeting the people who need it most. So yes, they need specific suicide prevention services.”

While the hotline focuses on LGBTQ youth, they don’t turn away adults who need help. Joshua Dial, 36, says that when he called 988, he was often connected to the LGBTQ youth hotline after mentioning that he’s gay. 

“I always walked away feeling better after I called,” he says. “There have been times when I spoke to the regular 988 crisis people, and they helped too. But they didn’t understand quite as much.”

Dial, a Lutheran who lives in Stillwater, Oklahoma, says he wasn’t always comfortable being open about his sexual orientation to his religious community and that the only way to meet other gay people was on hook-up and dating apps, which he notes are “not for emotional support.”

“I wouldn’t be talking to my pastor about getting on Grindr. I can’t go to my pastor and tell them what I did last weekend,” he says.

Photo courtesy of Dial.

Dial, who was raised to believe that homosexuality is a sin, has experienced depression since the age of 16 and has also struggled with bipolar disorder, addiction and PTSD. “My addiction was getting worse, and the only constant was that the line was always available,” he says. “I didn’t have any other options, but I knew that if I called the hotline, I would get help.”

Dial says the emotional support he received through these phone calls kept him from self-harm and suicide. “There are times when I called that number and was this close to taking a handful of pills, this close to slitting my wrist, this close to buying a gun to shoot myself. And I talked to those people, and they not only understood, but they gave me the empowerment of knowing that someone had my back.”

How Cutting Option 3 Affects the Whole System

While the cuts are only meant to affect the hotline’s support for LGBTQ youth, crisis center employees say they’ll impact the entire 988 network.

“This being rifted does very much mean less capacity for 988 as a whole,” says the suicide prevention call center director. “Everyone will be affected.”

“When the LGBTQ hotline opened up, it really lowered the volume on the mainstream counselors,” a 988 hotline counselor in Washington state told Uncloseted Media. “It seemed really helpful, and I didn’t get a lot of LGBTQ chats after that point.”

The counselor at the Washington state center says they are about to lay off 42 counselors from their LGBTQ hotline. They say these roles won’t be replaced on the main 988 line due to a hiring freeze. Because of this, counselors expect the number of calls they receive to double, which could dramatically increase wait times. The Washington state center did not respond to a request for comment.

Even without the cuts, wait times are an issue. A 17-year-old caller from Virginia says that even the 10 minutes they had to wait for their call to be answered were painful. “I was worried that nobody would want to talk to me. I was just feeling hopeless,” they say. “There’s this one resource that I’m supposed to be able to have access to 24/7, but it just isn’t as accessible as it should be. For some people, those 10 minutes are crucial.”

In a 2009 study of 82 patients referred to a psychiatric university hospital after a suicide attempt, nearly half reported that the period between their first thought of suicide and their actual attempt had lasted 10 minutes or less, underscoring how shorter wait times can be a matter of life and death.

“If we are not able to catch someone during the time that suicidal thoughts have appeared and intervene as quickly as possible, they could start figuring out how they’re going to kill themselves and make it happen,” says the suicide prevention call center director. “And a lot of folks have access to means that can result in instant death like firearms.”

What Can Be Done?

With the “Press 3” option gone, Rhoades worries that the current spate of anti-LGBTQ legislation and hateful rhetoric toward the community will affect how counselors without queer-specific training will provide care. 

“We’re living in an unprecedented time where anti-LGBTQ hatred is being normalized,” she says. “It absolutely affects how young people are treated. And it filters down to crisis counselors.”

As Congress and the Trump administration prepare to shut down “Press 3” on July 17 in an effort to save money, many believe that it will have the reverse effect.

“They just want these people to die. … That’s the message I got,” says a hotline operator in Washington state, adding that the administration is “not looking at the bigger picture.”

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Representatives and advocates are fighting for more LGBTQ mental health services. Kansas Rep. Sharice Davids reintroduced a bill last month dedicated to LGBTQ mental health resources. “By increasing access to mental health support for our children and teens, we can save lives,” Davids said in a press release. And last weekend, hundreds of people protested in front of Trump Tower in an effort to save the hotline.

Arden says they wouldn’t be here today without the line’s support. “I’ve been struggling for a long time in my life [with] self-harm and I’ve been clean almost two years now,” they say. “I would definitely not be clean if it weren’t for the hotline and I would probably hurt myself again.”

LGBTQ Crisis Helplines Still Available:

  • The Franklin County Youth Psychiatric Crisis Line: 614-722-1800
  • The Huckleberry House for youth experiencing homelessness also offers a teen crisis shelter helpline: 614-294-5553
  • The Trevor Project has a crisis hotline: 1-866-488-7386
  • There’s also a National LGBTQ Hotline: 888-843-4564
  • Blue Lemon Counseling is also a safe space: 419-377-7576
  • More crisis helplines can be found here.

Additional reporting by Spencer Macnaughton.

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