Republican elected officials are pro-life until a 16-year-old student dies from injuries sustained from an attack in their high school bathroom.
Nex Benedict, who identified as nonbinary and used they/them pronouns, was a sophomore student in Owasso, Oklahoma, and was beaten by several older high school students in the girls’ bathroom at their high school on Feb. 7. They died the next day at a local hospital. According to their obituary, they loved drawing, reading, playing video games and their cat, Zeus, and I believe they were a victim of a hate crime.
I first heard about Nex’s death through social media. Like most things I see on social media, I searched the internet for verification. The only news sources covering Nex’s untimely death were grassroots, small news organizations, mostly with queer identities in their title.
It wasn’t until Feb. 21 that Nex’s death made the headlines on the Associated Press, and major news outlets did not cover this tragedy for two weeks.
As I scrolled through more posts honoring Nex’s legacy and calls for justice, I saw a post that compared their death to the death of Matthew Shepard. Matthew was a gay man beaten and left for dead in Laramie, Wyoming, in 1998. Matthew’s death is documented through the play “The Laramie Project” and is one of the most high-profile hate crimes in United States’ history.
My high school performed “The Laramie Project” when I was a sophomore. This story deeply impacted me, and Nex’s death forced me to revisit those feelings. Matthew’s and Nex’s deaths were 25 years apart, but absolutely nothing has changed.
Social media users have called for the parents of the girls who attacked Nex to be held accountable for teaching their children to hate so much that they’re willing to beat someone to death.
I agree to some extent. These girls deserve to be tried as adults because they knew what they were doing. Their parents deserve some consequences too. However, I believe that this hate starts way up at the top with anti-trans legislation.
In 2022, Oklahoma banned trans and nonbinary students from using the bathrooms that align with their gender identity. Further legislation that has made its way to the governor’s desk directly challenges the opportunity for trans and nonbinary individuals to freely express themselves.
It is laws like this that foster hate in communities and in schools and give permission to the girls that attacked Nex to think it’s okay.
After Nex’s death, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt released a statement that read in part, “The death of any child in an Oklahoma school is a tragedy — and bullies must be held accountable.”
I agree. Bullies must be held accountable, and government officials who pass this harmful legislation are bullies.
Gov. Kevin Stitt and Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds are bullies.
Kim Reynolds has made it part of her policy to ensure trans individuals don’t feel safe or welcome in their own state. Iowa Republicans have unleashed dozens upon dozens of anti-LGBTQ bills in the last two years in an effort to advertise their “family values” and attack people who are different from them.
It makes me sick and angry every day that lawmakers feel like they can attack LGBTQ+ people, including those that I know and love, for their own political gain.
Is their political gain worth the deaths of children with bright futures?
In the same month that one red state ruled that embryos are children, another red state failed a living, breathing child as they were assaulted in their own school, a space that should be safe for all students to be themselves without fear of death.
If I was a religious person, I would pray every day that Nex’s death will be the last, but if I’m being realistic, it won’t be because Matthew wasn’t the last. Laramie, Wyoming, Owasso, Oklahoma, where next? Trans kids will continue to be targeted and possibly murdered until something changes.
I hope that Nex’s death will be a wake up call for so many that claim to be “pro-life,” but the hate that killed Nex won’t end until conservative legislatures stop signing that hate into law.
In response to this tragedy, many have said that there is no room for bullying in our schools. There’s no room for it in our legislature, either.
