4chan trolls flooded a suicide hotline by pretending to be LGBTQ2S+ youth in crisis

In the name of protecting children from “groomers,” 4chan users plotted to undermine a suicide crisis hotline for LGBTQ2S+ youth last week. 

According to screenshots of posts published by Media Matters researcher Alex Kaplan, users of the right-wing platform called The Trevor Project’s hotline in an effort to clog it up. In the posts, users said that they wanted to “demoralize therapists” and “fuck up the queue so that sodomites and fags commit suicide.” To do this, they posed as suicidal queer youth in calls to the LGBTQ2s+ youth advocacy group’s hotline. One person called for users to pretend they were killing themselves during the call. 

4chan trolls called The Trevor Project volunteers manning the hotline “sodomite groomers” on the site’s /pol/ message board, going so far declaring “war” on the LGBTQ2S+ youth nonprofit. In a screenshot posted by Kaplan, one user explicitly said that if their actions caused a single LGBTQ2S+ person to commit suicide, they would be happy. They referred to calling it as a “total Aryan victory.”

Kevin Wong, vice president of communications for The Trevor Project, said the calls did increase wait times for LGBTQ2S+ youth seeking help, even though counsellors quickly noted the uptick in calls and found the 4chan thread.

“We put up a banner on our website so that young people could expect that there would be delayed wait times,” Wong told BuzzFeed News. “It’s appalling—that’s the word I would use—that anyone would want to stop someone from finding services to prevent them from attempting suicide.”

Wong said this was the first time that 4chan trolls had targeted The Trevor Project, saying that he suspected that the nonprofit’s advocacy against the anti-LGBTQ2S+ bills sweeping the country could have drawn attention to the organization. 

“People have noticed us,” he said. We’ve been fighting for young LGBTQ2s+ people for a while. So we’re a little more visible now.”

The 4chan thread was posted around the time the conservative outlet National Review published an article about TrevorSpace, an online community for LGBTQ2S+ youth created by The Trevor Project. The article framed conversations about binding, gender identity and medical transition—as well as The Trevor Project’s LGBTQ2S+ education efforts—as sinister. 

Wong told Buzzfeed News that the article mischaracterized TrevorSpace, which has content moderators and strict terms of service. 

The Trevor Project is no stranger to being targeted by the right. In April, Libs of TikTok, a Twitter account notorious for threatening and harassing LGBTQ2S+ people, called The Trevor Project “a grooming organization.” The false association of LGBTQ2S+ people with grooming has been used to justify attacks on queer and trans youth, such as bills restricting access to medical care, bathrooms and sports teams. 

Rates of suicidal ideation for LGBTQ2S+ youth have increased for the past three years, according to a 2022 Trevor Project survey. According to the report, 45 percent of U.S. LGBTQ2S+ youth have seriously considered ending their lives in the past year, with 14 percent of respondents actually attempting to do so. Moreover, 60 percent of LGBTQ2S+ youth who wanted mental healthcare in the past year were not able to get it, despite 73 percent experiencing anxiety and 58 percent experiencing depression. 

The Trevor Project said the 4chan trolls’ attempt to bar LGBTQ2S+ youth from the hotline was all the more despicable because of widespread lack of access to mental healthcare. 

“Every second counts when you work in suicide prevention, and we strongly condemn this intent to obstruct our lines and create even more barriers for LGBTQ2s+ people who rely on our help,” the organization said in a statement to The Independent. “We are working diligently in the face of this disruption to protect our counsellors and those youth who need us.”