SACRAMENTO, California — California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Friday that he’s supporting a proposed law to print the number for a LGBTQ crisis line on the back of every public middle and high school ID card, as Donald Trump’s administration cuts back on the program nationally.
It’s another move, reported here for the first time, from Newsom that puts him in direct opposition with Washington, just one week after California became the first state to sue Trump over tariffs and then moved on another suit challengeing the administration over the Department of Government Efficiency’s cuts to AmeriCorps.
The Democratic governor’s support is a direct reaction to recent reports that Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plans to cut funding from the nonprofit network that to provides LGBTQ-specific counseling for youth at the national 988 suicide hotline.
“Suicide is the second leading cause of death among LGBTQ youth. Cutting off kids’ access to help is indefensible,” Newsom said in a statement shared exclusively with Politico. “While the Trump administration walks away from its responsibility, California will continue to expand access to life-saving resources, because the life of every child — straight, gay, trans — is worth fighting for.”
The California bill, AB 727 from a first-term Los Angeles Assemblymember Mark González, would put the number for the Trevor Project — the crisis and suicide prevention hotline for LGBTQ youth — on student ID cards.
The Trevor Project is one of the nonprofits that would lose funding under Trump’s budget, and the bill has come under fire from social conservatives in the state like the California Family Council who say it “undermines families” and provides a “playground for predators.”
At the bill’s first hearing in early April, Republican Assemblymember Josh Hoover questioned why it was necessary to put an LGBTQ-specific hotline number on cards, when a 2018 law put the general 988 hotline on all IDs already.
“My concern has nothing to do with the ability to call a hotline, obviously, that is something that I support,” Hoover said. “But if you go right now to the Trevor Project website, there are a number of resources provided that are very political in nature. There is access to a number of things that I would argue a lot of parents would be uncomfortable with.”
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