The upset caused by GOP President-elect Donald Trump’s astounding and unexpected victory has sent largely liberal communities spiraling into depression and suicidal ideations, according to crisis hotlines.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline was flooded with calls after Trump’s win Tuesday evening, far exceeding call volume from the presidential elections in 2012 and 2008.
“The Lifeline did see an increase in calls over the past few days,” Director of Communications Frances Gonzalez told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “When feelings of loss and anxiety occur due to a major national, regional, or community event, that can aggravate other anxieties or feelings of loss people may be having that are not necessarily election-related.”
What these people are concerned and scared about is that the leftward march under the Obama administration will begin to rapidly recede once Trump takes office.
Crisis Text Line found itself in a similar position in the post-election aftermath. The number of texts doubled, and most of them originated from the LGBT community.
“They were scared about the results of the election and how that might impact them or their friends,” Chief Data Scientist Bob Filbin told Time Magazine. “A lot of the concerns were around policy and how policy might change at the state or federal level.”
Over at Trans Lifeline, executive director Greta Martela said there were 426 callers to the line on election evening.
“We were hoping that we would have an election and things would get better,” Martela said. “This is at a time when the Obama administration has been doing wonderful things for trans people and it’s probably all doing to be undone. We’re looking at four pretty bleak years.”
Many callers expressed dismay at the fact they’d have to visit their Trump-supporting families for Thanksgiving later in November.
Vice-President-elect Mike Pence, unlike Trump, is much more aggressively traditional. Pence did not support repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in 2011, and he has prioritized religious freedom over letting the LGBT community make claims of discrimination in the workplace.
He has also criticized Obama’s transgender bathroom law.
It’s not terribly surprising that many of the suicide calls came from the LGBT community. A study conducted using a sample size of 6,000 transgender adults found that 41 percent had attempted suicide.
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