Earlier this month a high school in Oklahoma experienced a true tragedy with the death of a student. On February 8th a non-binary 16 year old student said to be using they/he pronouns died and the cause of the death is still undetermined, though the public has their suspicions
On February 7th, the day before their death, Nex Benedict had an altercation in their school bathroom. Before their passing, we could see from a police body cam that Nex had expressed that a group of three girls had been bullying him and in retaliation they dumped water on the group and then was confronted with the fight. Nex was said during the fight to have had their head hit the bathroom floor where they later blacked out from the beating.
Nex was later with their family members taken to the hospital where the cops were able to get all his accounts of the fight. After being checked out of the hospital seemingly oka Nex was found later the next day in their room unresponsive. Reportedly, they were then taken to the hospital and sadly passed away. Authorities are still unclear if the death was due to the fight.
People do not believe this death was by any means uninfluential, after the death raised attention many have called for an outrage blaming Oklahoma’s anti- trans bills. ‘SB 615’ is the bill of focus in this case, a bill that denies students the right to use a bathroom assigned by their gender identity stating they have to use the bathroom of their birth gender. The state is also seen still considering to pass another bill that would prohibit people from using any gender or name that isn’t on their birth certificate because gender is an “immutable biological trait” (Edmonds & Hassan, 2024)
After Nex’s death gained traction, protests erupted from New York to Los Angeles and even school walkouts in Oklahoma for justice for Nex and all trans students getting discriminated against and bullied due to their identity. The fight is now also to raise awareness to the dangers that these anti-trans/lgbtq laws can bring.
Students and activists have also pushed the blame on superintendent Ryan Walters stating these anti trans policies are creating unsafe environments.
"What happened on that individual level is an individual situation that happens because of a systematic problem," said Alex DeRoin, a fellow LGBT+ member and sympathizer.
CBS went on to say how DeRoin also puts some blame on Oklahoma leaders who have pushed anti-LGBTQ+ laws in the state, like state superintendent of public education Ryan Walters, which he had mentioned earlier. (Villafranca, 2024)
In an interview with CBS News, Ryan Walters states,
"I'm going to completely reject the notion that common sense policies — that there's two genders, that there shouldn't be gender ideology pushed in schools — has any connection whatsoever to students feeling safe,"(Villafranca, 2024)
We can even see in an article done by the New York Times, he says that he believes trans and nonbinary people don’t even exist. (Edmonds & Hassan, 2024)
Nex Benedict’s death was a true horrible tragedy that has shined more light on all the struggles trans students are facing in states like Oklahoma, who house opinions like Ryan Walters from government officials. These opinions and policies allow students who attack and bully these children to walk away with little to no punishment and allow schools like the one Nex went too to be able to state that this altercation had nothing to do with Nex’s identity. Activists, Nex’s family, and fellow students and classmates now push more than ever for these policies to be relooked at and overturned, because without that more situations like this will be guaranteed to happen again in the future. In the US we have freedom of speech, but also expression and these policies and violence interfere with just that and these individuals right to happiness.
Edmonds, C., & Hassan, A. (2024, February 25). What We Know About the Death of a Nonbinary Student in Oklahoma. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/article/nex-benedict-oklahoma.html
Villafranca, O. (2024, February 27). Community searching for answers after nonbinary teen Nex Benedict dies following fight at school. CBS Evening News. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nex-benedict-death-oklahoma-owasso/
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