The dying of Nex Benedict: We nonetheless don’t know what occurred

We all know a gender-nonconforming teen in an Oklahoma highschool is useless. We don’t know a lot else.

Nex Benedict didn’t have a protracted and troubled historical past with the ladies who fought with him the day earlier than his dying on February 8. In response to his grandmother and adoptive guardian, Nex had drawn bullies and harassment for the reason that begin of his sophomore 12 months at Owasso Excessive College West within the fall. These women, nevertheless, barely knew Nex.

Nex was an Indigenous 16-year-old pupil dwelling in Owasso, Oklahoma. At house, he informed his household he was nonbinary and used they/them pronouns; at college, he additionally used he/him pronouns and informed a former companion that he was trans.

He has been described as a whip-smart straight-A pupil, a gifted artist who liked animals, particularly his cat, Zeus. He had a supportive boyfriend who Nex helped come out to his mother and father. He liked taking part in Minecraft and preferred to make up recipes within the kitchen. Mates referred to as him “adventurous” and “fiery.”

After a lot harassment, that fiery temperament might have led him to face up for himself. Lower than 24 hours later, Nex Benedict could be useless.

The response of the native and state authorities to his dying — together with complicated statements by the Owasso Police Division on the trigger — has pushed each Nex and Oklahoma into the nationwide dialog. The weeks since Benedict died have been a storm of rampant misinformation, irritating non-answers from authorities, and distracting aspect discussions in regards to the political extremists who’ve glommed onto the controversy. The incident has additionally introduced elevated scrutiny of Benedict’s faculty district from the Division of Schooling, which introduced on March 1 that it might be launching an investigation into whether or not the varsity violated Benedict’s nondiscrimination rights beneath Title IX.

All of it quantities to a harrowing dialog about this period of aggressive anti-trans sentiment, and the true trans children who’re paying the associated fee.

Nex Benedict’s dying occurred after an incident in a college rest room

On the afternoon of February 7, Benedict was collaborating in a college disciplinary program alongside three first-year women. Although they barely knew one another, Benedict stated the ladies engaged in mocking him and his mates “due to the best way that we gown.” He defined this in an interview with a college useful resource officer later that day, captured on police bodycam footage that has since been launched to the general public.

As the ladies entered a girls’s rest room — which Benedict was legally required to make use of because of a 2022 Oklahoma legislation requiring public faculty college students to make use of the restroom for the intercourse they had been assigned at start — Benedict threw water at them from a water bottle he was carrying.

In response, Benedict stated the three women began bodily attacking him, grabbing his hair. After Benedict shoved one of many assailants right into a towel dispenser, “they bought my legs out from beneath me, bought me on the bottom, and began beating the shit out of me,” he informed the officer.

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The assault was so violent that Benedict says he “blacked out.” Sue Benedict, Benedict’s grandmother and adoptive guardian, later stated he was left lined in bruises. Regardless of Benedict allegedly being knocked unconscious, and regardless of surveillance video displaying him showing to sway on his toes whereas strolling, nobody at Owasso referred to as for medical companies or police “per district protocols” — a undeniable fact that reportedly left Sue Benedict “livid.” As an alternative, faculty directors suspended Benedict for 2 weeks. It’s unknown whether or not the ladies obtained related punishment; the varsity’s assertion harassed that “any notion that the district has ignored disciplinary motion towards these concerned is solely unfaithful.”

The college later launched an announcement mentioning that the entire events concerned “walked beneath their very own energy” to the nurse’s workplace, the place they had been examined and cleared by the nurse. The nurse did, nevertheless, recommend that Benedict voluntarily bear a extra thorough medical examination.

Later that day, Sue Benedict took him to a hospital and summoned an officer to attempt to provoke fees of assault towards Benedict’s attackers. College useful resource officer Caleb Thompson discouraged Benedict from pursuing the case, telling him that by throwing the water on the ladies, he “primarily began it … it’s a mutual struggle.” Sue Benedict then declined to press fees. (The Owasso Police Division didn’t return a request for remark.)

“I bought jumped at college 3 on 1,” Benedict texted a relative later. “[I] needed to go to the ER… if I’m nonetheless dizzy and nauseous within the morning I might need a concussion.”

The subsequent morning, Sue Benedict positioned a name to 911, stating that Benedict had fallen unconscious and gave the impression to be “posturing,” exhibiting involuntary motions that may point out mind trauma. Benedict returned to the hospital however was pronounced useless quickly after arrival.

From that second on, questions on what truly occurred to Benedict, who he was, and what might or ought to have been finished to guard him solely grew louder.

The circumstances of Benedict’s dying are as complicated as they’re angering

Initially, everybody from members of the family to media retailers contributed to confusion in regards to the fundamental details of Benedict’s life: what his identify was, how he recognized, which pronouns he used, what his Indigenous heritage was. A number of media reviews have described Benedict as two-spirit, which is a conventional Indigenous idea that describes a 3rd nonbinary gender; it’s unclear, nevertheless, that Benedict recognized as two-spirit.

Threats had been made towards the varsity; Benedict’s household made a plea towards being bullied. And with no health worker’s report or toxicology outcomes forthcoming practically a month later, the most important supply of uncertainty and battle stays: What truly brought on Benedict’s dying?

Officers did provoke a proper investigation into Benedict’s dying, executing a search warrant on the faculty on February 9 and accumulating written statements from faculty officers. Regardless of stating to the Impartial that “all fees might be on the desk” for Benedict’s assailants as soon as a reason behind dying was confirmed, the Owasso police launched a follow-up assertion on February 21 that appeared to strongly insinuate that Benedict’s dying was unconnected to the struggle.

“Whereas the investigation continues into the altercation,” the report said, “preliminary data from the health worker’s workplace is {that a} full post-mortem was carried out and indicated that the decedent didn’t die on account of trauma … additional feedback on the reason for dying are at the moment pending till toxicology outcomes and different ancillary testing outcomes are obtained.”

In an interview with In style Data, Owasso Police Division Public Data Officer Nick Boatman additional clarified that the health worker had “emphasised they’re ready for toxicology,” which he took as a “crimson flag,” and that he was “assuming once I get that [toxicology report] again, one thing’s going to be there.” The police later clarified that the struggle has not been dominated out as a reason behind dying.

In response to the broadly held notion that Benedict was a sufferer of anti-queer and anti-trans bullying and violence, communities throughout the nation have held vigils for Benedict.

On February 26, a bunch of Owasso college students — estimates ranged from 20 to over 40 — walked out of sophistication to protest the bullying that preceded Benedict’s dying. They had been joined by group members and college students from different faculties. Previous to the protest, mother and father had been knowledgeable that college students who participated within the walkout could be marked absent from lessons except they obtained written permission from a guardian to take part.

Questions linger about how a lot bullying Benedict endured, and why Owasso Excessive College didn’t present extra concern for Benedict after an altercation wherein his head was slammed towards the ground. In an emailed assertion, Jordan Korphage, the director of communications for Owasso Public Colleges, informed Vox that the district “take[s] reviews of bullying very severely” and that “all reported bullying accusations are investigated by directors on the faculty web site wherein they happen, and are reviewed by the district’s Director of Security and Safety.” Korphage stated the varsity had no information of earlier incidents between these college students previous to February 7 and added, “To the district’s information, there have been no reported bullying incidents by Nex or on Nex’s behalf in the course of the 2023-2024 faculty 12 months.”

Out of a perception that Benedict endured gender-based discrimination, the Human Rights Marketing campaign filed a criticism towards the Owasso faculty district with the DOE, which subsequently introduced on March 1 that it might be investigating the varsity. In an announcement to NBC Information, a spokesperson for the varsity district referred to as the allegation “with out advantage.”

The investigation factors towards the bigger nationwide dialog about trans children — and the larger query of whether or not, as a substitute of defending everybody else from college students like Nex Benedict, it’s time to struggle to guard children like Nex from everybody else.

Nex Benedict lived as a trans child in a state that legally ostracized him

Since 2022, Oklahoma has been on the forefront of a wave of anti-trans laws aimed toward blocking trans individuals from well being care entry, forcing transgender college students to make use of bogs and locker rooms that don’t align with their identification, criminalizing gender-affirming well being care, and stopping trans individuals from legally figuring out as their appropriate gender.

A 2023 evaluation by a state watchdog group discovered that state legislators had “launched 40 payments limiting LGBTQ Oklahomans’ healthcare entry, inclusion in faculties and choices for self-expression this legislative session.” This 12 months, that quantity is even larger: a staggering 54 payments — the best within the nation.

The ostensible purpose of those legal guidelines is to withstand what Oklahoma training superintendent Ryan Walters has referred to as “radical gender idea.” However the impact is undoubtedly the cultural and literal erasure of trans individuals.

The double normal this atmosphere creates may be each weird and laborious to fathom in its cruelty. In June 2023, the Oklahoma Division of Schooling, beneath Walters, launched a YouTube video titled “Defending College students from Leftist Social Experiments by Upholding the Legislation.”

The video’s topic — as informed by means of the emotionally incendiary use of edited information footage, interviews, and inventory footage of a scared-looking little woman — is the alleged assault of a cis woman by a trans woman, who was misgendered all through the video. The video portrayed the trans woman as a violent predatory male who wanted to be saved out of ladies’ bogs for the security of cisgender women.

Up to now, Walters has stated nothing about defending trans youngsters from violence directed at them by cisgender teenagers. As an alternative, although calling Benedict’s dying a tragedy, he informed ABC he desires “the main target to be on the fundamentals and training,” insisting he “won’t play woke gender video games, [and] won’t again all the way down to a woke mob.” (Walters’ workplace didn’t reply to a request for remark.)

Walters’s anti-trans insurance policies and much more anti-trans rhetoric have been the main target of ongoing backlash. On February 28, tons of of state and nationwide activist teams referred to as for his resignation, arguing he had “foster[ed] a tradition of violence and hate towards the 2SLGBTQI+ group in Oklahoma faculties.”

In his most controversial transfer, Walters appointed anti-trans MAGA influencer Chaya Raichik to serve on a media advisory committee for the Oklahoma faculty library system; Raichik is the creator behind the anti-LGBTQ Libs of TikTok social media accounts. (Raichik just isn’t an Oklahoma resident and informed the Washington Publish she has solely visited the state as soon as.)

Previous to this appointment, Raichik used her infamous social media presence to focus on lecturers at numerous Oklahoma faculties, accusing them of spreading a “woke” liberal agenda, normally concerning assist for queer and trans teenagers.

These included one in every of Benedict’s former lecturers, Tyler Wrynn. After Wrynn posted a video message of assist for queer and genderqueer college students to his TikTok web page in 2022, Raichik amplified it and began a viral pile-on. Wrynn subsequently resigned — however not earlier than receiving dying threats and accusations of “grooming” youngsters.

Benedict, who had been one in every of Wrynn’s college students, was reportedly “very offended” about Raichik’s concentrating on of his trainer. (Wrynn spoke at a February 25 vigil for Nex.)

Following Benedict’s dying, some native officers had been outraged at Raichik for her position in stoking anti-trans violence of their group. For her half, Raichik informed the Washington Publish that Benedict’s dying was “horrible,” but additionally repeatedly misgendered him, described gender variance as “a psychological sickness,” and spoke of desirous to “eradicate gender ideology from public life.” (Raichik didn’t reply to a request for remark.)

This rhetoric, which essentially questions the fitting of trans individuals to exist, has arguably contributed to a deeply poisonous political atmosphere not simply in Oklahoma however throughout the nation — one wherein anti-LGBTQ bigotry is more and more changing into accepted coverage. Whereas some Republican lawmakers may specific sympathy towards victims like Benedict, their social gathering’s political machine is actively engaged, each at a nationwide and state-by-state degree, in taking away even essentially the most fundamental protections for queer and trans children.

State Sen. Tom Woods admitted as a lot throughout a February 23 city discussion board, when he took time to reply to Benedict’s dying within the worst manner — by repeatedly referring to Benedict and different LGBTQ individuals as “filth.”

“We’re a Republican state — supermajority — within the Home and Senate. I signify a constituency that doesn’t need that filth in Oklahoma,” Woods stated.

“Once I heard the information of Nex Benedict … I discovered the information predictable and inevitable,” former Oklahoma trainer Tyger Songbird wrote for information journal LGBTQNation. “The tradition and local weather that Republicans have fomented, the place politicians days after Nex’s passing name LGBTQ+ individuals filth, helped precipitate such a tragedy.” Songbird resigned his place in 2022 after realizing “that hate was going to win.”

“That is all regardless of proof displaying that trans teen suicide threat dramatically reduces with the liberty to transition and stay of their gender identification,” he wrote. “This all is going on regardless of proof displaying that simply having one supportive trainer and educator reduces suicide makes an attempt by LGBTQ+ teenagers by 40%.” The truth that Benedict was additionally one in every of North America’s susceptible Indigenous college students meant that his victimology was much more difficult.

In different phrases, Oklahoma’s dismantling of authorized protections for trans college students and their allies is actively placing them in danger. We nonetheless don’t know what killed Nex Benedict — however no matter it was, there’s no query that life was fraught for Nex and different college students like him. Whenever you enact “measures designed to crack down on the lives and well-being of trans children,” as my former colleague Emily St. James wrote in 2022, “you create an atmosphere the place trans children endure … If these measures are carried out, numerous trans individuals will needlessly die.”

In the present day, the loss is that this: a vibrant teen whom family and friends described as humorous, powerful, and endlessly type. If solely being human had been sufficient to guard a susceptible little one from a system that’s decided to erase them.

“Greater than something, I want he would stroll again into class and all the pieces could be regular once more,” one Owasso pupil stated at Nex’s vigil. “Although I’ve watched them be buried, I search for them wherever I am going.”