The demise of a 16-year-old nonbinary pupil after an altercation in a highschool women’ toilet in Oklahoma has drawn nationwide consideration and outrage from homosexual and transgender rights teams that say the coed had been bullied due to their gender id.
Nex Benedict, who usually used the pronouns they and them and informed kin that they didn’t see themselves as strictly male or feminine, died in early February, sooner or later after the altercation with three women at Owasso Excessive College. Particulars over what occurred and what precisely precipitated Nex’s demise had been unclear, however in a police interview video launched Feb. 24, Nex stated that they had “blacked out” whereas being crushed on the toilet flooring.
The police stated the case was nonetheless beneath investigation.
Nex’s demise and the circumstances round it have put faculty officers and regulation enforcement beneath scrutiny. There was an outpouring of grief throughout the nation, significantly from the L.G.B.T.Q. neighborhood, and a renewed deal with the proliferation of insurance policies that limit homosexual and transgender rights.
Right here’s what we all know to date:
What occurred main as much as Nex’s demise?
The altercation passed off on Feb. 7. The Owasso Police Division stated in a press release on Feb. 20 that no police report had been made in regards to the struggle till after Nex was taken to a hospital by kin later the identical day.
At that time, a college useful resource officer went to the hospital, the police stated. Nex was discharged and went house however was rushed again to the hospital by medics the subsequent day, and died there, the police stated.
On Feb. 24, the police launched a video of Nex’s interview on the hospital on the day of the altercation, which supplied the fullest account but of what occurred.
Nex stated within the interview that three women had crushed them after Nex had poured water on the ladies for laughing at them and their buddy. Nex stated the ladies had beforehand mocked Nex and their associates “due to the best way that we gown.”
“We had been laughing,” Nex stated. “And so they had stated one thing like, ‘Why do they chortle like that?’ They had been speaking about us in entrance of us.”
“Then all three of them got here at me,” Nex added. At one level, Nex hit their head on the toilet flooring, in accordance with Sue Benedict, their grandmother and guardian.
Nex went to the hospital and got here house that day. The subsequent day, Nex collapsed at house and was rushed again to the hospital, the place they had been pronounced useless, Ms. Benedict stated.
Officers additionally launched surveillance video from the college on the day of the altercation, exhibiting college students, together with Nex, coming into the toilet and, individually, Nex strolling by way of the halls with a workers member after the confrontation.
A number of particulars, together with Nex’s precise reason behind demise, stay unknown.
Among the many key questions that stay unanswered is how precisely Nex died.
On Feb. 21, the police stated preliminary post-mortem outcomes discovered that Nex “didn’t die because of trauma.” The state medical expert’s workplace has not but made public its report on the post-mortem and toxicology outcomes.
It is usually unclear whether or not Nex was crushed due to their gender id. Advocates for nonbinary and transgender college students have stated that Oklahoma’s insurance policies on gender had led to extra studies of confrontations in faculties.
And questions stay over why faculty officers didn’t contact the police or different officers after the altercation.
In a assertion on Feb. 20, the Owasso faculty district advised there had been “hypothesis and misinformation” in regards to the circumstances surrounding the altercation, which it stated lasted lower than two minutes earlier than being damaged up by different college students, “together with a workers member.” The varsity stated that each one the scholars concerned “walked beneath their very own energy to the assistant principal’s workplace and nurse’s workplace.”
Oklahoma has a number of legal guidelines limiting transgender rights.
The incident has renewed scrutiny over anti-transgender laws in Oklahoma.
The state has a number of legal guidelines that limit transgender rights, together with one which prohibits college students from utilizing bogs that don’t align with their intercourse at delivery. One other regulation explicitly bans gender impartial markers on delivery certificates. Oklahoma additionally bars minors from receiving gender-transition care.
This yr, the State Legislature is contemplating a invoice to ban residents from altering their intercourse designation on delivery certificates, and one other to require public faculties to acknowledge that gender is an “immutable organic trait” and bar individuals from utilizing names or pronouns that differ from their delivery certificates.
The legal guidelines are a part of a nationwide push by conservatives to limit homosexual and transgender rights. Statehouses across the nation have been consumed by fights over legal guidelines governing them, with at the least 23 states having handed bans on gender transition look after minors.
The state superintendent defended his stance on gender, whereas L.G.B.T.Q. advocates blamed him for making a “hostile setting.”
Oklahoma’s superintendent for public faculties, Ryan Walters, has been staunch in his anti-transgender rhetoric since assuming the function in 2022. Mr. Walters remained agency in his stance after the incident, and in his first interview since Nex’s demise, he informed The Instances that he doesn’t consider nonbinary or transgender individuals exist.
“You all the time deal with people with dignity or respect, as a result of they’re made in God’s picture,” Mr. Walters stated. “However that doesn’t change fact.”
In the meantime, supporters of L.G.B.T.Q. rights have reacted with anger and worry over Nex’s demise, saying such restrictive insurance policies on gender had been dangerous.
“Ryan Walters has created a devastatingly hostile setting for trans, two-spirit and gender-nonconforming college students,” stated Nicole McAfee, the chief director of Freedom Oklahoma, which advocates for transgender and homosexual rights.
Transgender college students stated that classmates have seen rhetoric from officers like Mr. Walters as permission to harass and bully them.
“There’s a whole lot of emotions of helplessness,” stated Hali, a transgender woman in highschool, who requested that her final title not be used out of concern that she could also be focused by anti-transgender activists. “You all the time have that little little bit of worry that you can be attacked, that you can be one of many victims.”
J. David Goodman and Edgar Sandoval contributed reporting.
