Advocates, lawmakers link nonbinary Oklahoma teen’s death to anti-LGBTQ legislation and rhetoric

As the shocking death of a nonbinary Oklahoma high school student reverberates through the LGBTQ community, advocacy groups and state and federal lawmakers say hateful rhetoric and laws that target LGBTQ individuals are to blame for the teenager’s untimely passing.

Nex Benedict, 16, was a sophomore at Owasso High School in Owasso, Okla., a Tulsa suburb of about 40,000. They collapsed at home Feb. 8, a day after they were involved in a physical altercation in the girls bathroom at school.

The students involved in the fight, which reportedly lasted less than two minutes and was broken up by other students and a staff member, “walked under their own power to the assistant principal’s office and nurse’s office” following the altercation, the school district said Tuesday in a statement. 

Each of the students involved was given a health assessment by a registered nurse, and while school officials ultimately decided that an ambulance was not needed, “out of an abundance of caution, it was recommended to one parent that their student visit a medical facility for further examination,” the school district said.

Each of the students’ parents were notified of the incident and given the option to file a police report. 

“We understand that for many, additional questions remain, however these are the facts that we are able to communicate at this juncture,” Owasso Public Schools said in its statement.

Sue Benedict, Nex’s grandmother and legal guardian, told The Independent this week that she took Nex to Bailey Medical Center in Owasso immediately following the fight and was discharged after speaking with a resource officer. They returned the following day after Nex collapsed, she said, and Nex died later that evening.

Owasso Police said Tuesday that the results of an autopsy and toxicology report are pending.

“It is not known at this time if the death is related to the incident at the school or not,” police said in a statement. “We can assure everyone that this incident is being taken seriously and is being investigated thoroughly.”

Owasso Public Schools in its statement did not say what caused the fight to break out. In text messages shared with KOKI-TV in Tulsa, Nex told a family member that the altercation was the result of bullying.

According to Benedict, Nex had been bullied at school for being nonbinary since at least the beginning of last year.

Dozens of LGBTQ advocacy groups and lawmakers have since early Monday, when news of Nex’s death began gaining traction on social media, mourned the teenager’s death in public statements. Many link the bullying that allegedly caused the fight between Nex and their classmates to a slate of laws passed in Oklahoma last year targeting LGBTQ people.

The state is one of nearly two dozen to ban gender-affirming health care for transgender minors, and Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt last year signed an executive order directing state agencies to adopt narrow definitions of “male” and “female” that exclude trans people.

Stitt in 2022 signed legislation barring transgender individuals, including students, from using bathrooms at K-12 schools that match their gender identity. This year, state legislators have already proposed more than 50 anti-LGBTQ laws, according to the ACLU, more than any other state.

“Whether Nex died as a direct result of injuries sustained in the brutal hate-motivated attack at school or not, Nex’s death is a result of being the target of physical and emotional harm because of who Nex was,” Freedom Oklahoma, a state LGBTQ advocacy group, said Tuesday in a statement. “This harm is absolutely related to the rhetoric and policies that are commonplace at the Oklahoma Legislature, the State Department of Education, and the Governor’s office, with regard to dehumanizing [Two Spirit, trans and gender non-conforming] people.”

Tori Cooper, a director of the Human Rights Campaign’s Transgender Justice Initiative, said Wednesday that hate speech against LGBTQ people online is also to blame.

“Extremist anti-LGBTQ+ hate accounts … are perpetuating a vile and hateful narrative that is permitting these types of public attacks,” Cooper said in a statement. “Their hateful speech is having a direct, negative impact on the lives of trans and gender-expansive folks, including young students like Nex.”

Cooper and others who have spoken about Nex’s death allege the incident stems in part from the actions of Chaya Raichik, the conservative activist behind Libs of TikTok whose posts often target LGBTQ people, including a former teacher at Nex’s high school.

Ryan Walters — Oklahoma’s top education official, who has also repeatedly espoused anti-LGBTQ views — recently appointed Raichik to the state’s library advisory board.

In a post on X, the Congressional Equality Caucus — responsible for promoting LGBTQ equality in the House — said its members were “mourning the tragic death” of Nex, whose passing, the group said, emphasizes the need to push back against rhetoric and laws that target the LGBTQ community.

“It’s more important than ever to stand up to anti-trans hate, violence, & legislation across the country,” the caucus said Wednesday morning.

“To all those who swear they’re ‘protecting children’ by introducing the laws and spewing hate that put the lives of kids like Nex at risk – these are the consequences of what you do,” Mark Takano (D-Calif.), one of the caucus’s co-chairs, said Wednesday on X, formerly Twitter.

Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona similarly said he was “devastated” by news of Nex’s passing.

“I can’t put into words the grief that I feel for Nex, their family, and their community,” Cardona said in a Wednesday post on X. “It is our responsibility to protect all students by creating spaces where they feel safe to be their true selves.”

Oklahoma state Rep. Mauree Turner, a Democrat who in 2020 became the nation’s first nonbinary state lawmaker, said Nex and transgender Oklahomans “deserve more.”

“More unquestioned community advocacy. More tenderness and care. More life. So much more life,” Turner said Tuesday in an Instagram post.

Turner, who was censured by Oklahoma’s Republican-dominated Legislature last year following a protest over the state’s gender-affirming health care ban, said Nex’s death “is a direct result of a failed administration in a public school that didn’t value the life of a trans student. A failed administration that was empowered by a failed local government who has created open season, and more specifically a transgenocide in Oklahoma.”