OKLAHOMA CITY — Police in Oklahoma are investigating the death of a 16-year-old student who died a day after an altercation in a high school bathroom that may have been sparked by bullying about gender identity.
Neither police nor school officials have said what led to the fight. But Nex Benedict’s family says there was harassment because the teen was non-binary.
No cause of death has been released for Nex Benedict, an Owasso High School student in suburban Tulsa who used those pronouns. Nex Benedict was able to walk out of the bathroom after the February 7 fight, but was taken to a hospital by their family, sent home that night and died the next day after going back to the hospital.
“What we’re really waiting for is the cause of death, and for that we obviously need the toxicology report and the autopsy from the medical examiner’s office,” said Owasso police Lt. Nick Boatman, who said detectives are interviewing personnel. and students at the school to learn more about what happened.
Nex Benedict’s mother, Sue Benedict, told The Independent that the teenager suffered bruises all over his face and eyes after she and a transgender student got into a fight in a school toilet with three older girls.
“I didn’t know how bad it had gotten,” Sue Benedict told the outlet.
Malia Pila, Nex Benedict’s sister, described her sibling as an “amazing child who has impacted all of us in ways that are difficult to put into words for their sake.”
“We are deeply, deeply saddened by their passing,” she wrote in a text message to The Associated Press on Wednesday.
Sue Benedict, in a statement on a GoFundMe page set up to help cover funeral costs, said the family was still learning to use the teen’s preferred name and pronouns.
“Please don’t judge us the way Nex was judged, please don’t bully us for our ignorance on this subject,” she wrote. “Nex has given us that respect and in our sorrow we are sorry that we overlooked them.”
Owasso police said in a statement Tuesday that Nex Benedict died on Feb. 8, the day after the altercation at the high school. Boatman said investigators will forward the results of that investigation to the local district attorney to determine what, if any, charges should be filed.
When asked if the students involved in the fight could be charged with a hate crime, Boatman said, “All crimes and charges will be on the table.”
School officials in Owasso, a suburb about 12 miles northeast of Tulsa, said in a statement that a physical altercation took place in a restroom and students were in the restroom for less than two minutes before the fight was broken up by other students. and an employee.
After the fight, each of the students “walked to the assistant principal’s office and nurse’s office on their own,” and school officials advised the parent of one of the students involved to visit a medical facility for further evaluation .
Police said they were not made aware of the altercation until the student arrived at the hospital, and a report was filed at the time. Police said the student was rushed back to hospital the next day, February 8, and was pronounced dead.
Oklahoma’s Republican-led Legislature has passed several new laws in recent years that target transgender and nonbinary people, including bills that would ban children from receiving gender-affirming medical care and ban the use of nonbinary gender markers on birth certificates.
Gov. Kevin Stitt has also signed bills banning transgender girls and women from playing on female sports teams and banning transgender children from using school bathrooms that match their gender identity.
Stitt’s office released a statement Wednesday on behalf of the governor and his wife, Sarah.
“Sarah and I are saddened to learn of Nex Benedict’s death, and our hearts go out to Nex’s family, his classmates and the Owasso community,” he said. “The death of any child in an Oklahoma school is a tragedy – and bullies must be held accountable.”
Among the many anti-trans bills being considered in Oklahoma this year are measures to ban gender-affirming adult care, prohibiting school staff from using a student’s preferred pronouns if they do not correspond to the sex assigned at birth, and state laws to ban or implement orders that recognize any gender except male and female.
Oklahoma’s Superintendent of Public Schools, Ryan Walters, has also embraced anti-trans policies and faced a bipartisan backlash after appointing a right-wing social media influencer from New York known for posting anti-trans rhetoric to a panel of the state library. One of Chaya Raichik’s posts on her Libs of TikTok account on the X Platform, formerly known as Twitter, last year, which showed an edited video criticizing a public school librarian in Tulsa, led to several subsequent days of bomb threats against schools in the district.
“Discriminatory policies and hateful rhetoric from government officials against transgender youth are making our schools less safe and denying young people like Nex the future they deserve,” ACLU Oklahoma said in a statement.
In a statement Wednesday, Walters said he mourned the loss of the Owasso student and would “pray for God’s comfort for the family and the entire Owasso community.”
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Reporter Philip Marcelo contributed from New York.