Death of Nex Benedict

Nex Benedict (January 11, 2008 – February 8, 2024) was a 16-year-old non-binary American student who died after an incident at their high school on February 7, 2024.

According to their mother and friends, Benedict had experienced bullying from students due to their gender identity for more than a year before their death.

Benedict told police they were beaten by three girls in the girls' restroom at Owasso High School in Owasso, Oklahoma.

Benedict died the following day.

Final autopsy and toxicology reports are pending, and their cause of death has not been established.

Vigils in honor of Benedict have been held across the United States.

Advocacy and civil rights groups have noted a connection from anti-LGBT policies and rhetoric to Benedict's death, and have called for investigation of the Oklahoma State Department of Education as well as the removal of Ryan Walters, the Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Walters has defended state policies and criticized responses to Benedict's death as politically motivated.

On March 1, the Office for Civil Rights division of the U.S. Department of Education opened an investigation into the Oklahoma school district following a complaint filed by the Human Rights Campaign.

Nex Benedict was born in 2008 in El Paso, Texas.

Nex's biological father relinquished all parental rights early on, and is in prison for abuse.

Sue Benedict, Nex's grandmother and adoptive mother, raised Nex since they were two months old and formally adopted them a few years before their death.

Sue is enrolled in the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, but Nex was not affiliated with the tribe.

Nex and their family lived in Owasso, Oklahoma, a suburb of Tulsa, on the Cherokee Nation reservation, and attended school at Owasso High School on the reservation.

The high school has 3,000 students in grades 9 through 12.

In 2022, Oklahoma became the first state in the United States to prohibit the use of non-binary gender markers on birth certificates.

Students are legally required to use a bathroom that corresponds with sex assigned at birth, and minors are legally prevented from receiving gender-affirming health care.

Legislation under consideration for the 2024 session includes new curriculum for public schools to describe gender as an "immutable biological trait", a ban on changing "sex" on birth certificates, and a requirement for school employees to use pronouns and names for students based only on birth certificates.

Ryan Walters, the Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction, has implemented policies that include preventing students from changing the designation of their gender or sex in school records.

In January 2024, Walters appointed social media influencer Chaya Raichik, the operator of the Libs of TikTok account known for posting anti-LGBT+ content, to the Oklahoma Department of Education's Library Media Advisory Committee.

In 2022, an Owasso High School teacher, reported to have been "greatly admired" by Benedict, resigned after becoming a subject of a post by Raichik.

According to Sue Benedict and Nex's friends, students at Owasso High School had been bullying Nex due to their gender identity for more than a year.

Nex was a sophomore in high school.

Sue Benedict said she was contacted by Owasso High School on February 7 and arrived to find Nex with bruises on their face and scratches on the back of their head.

Sue was also informed that Nex was suspended from school for two weeks.

On her own, Sue then took Nex to be examined at a nearby hospital and summoned the Owasso Police Department at around 3:30 p.m (CT).

Surveillance footage from the school hallway showed six students enter the bathroom where the incident occurred, before Nex and two students entered.

During 21 minutes of bodycam footage from Nex's interview with a school resource officer, recorded on the officer's body camera in the emergency room at Bailey Medical Center in Owasso at around 4 p.m. on February 7, Nex told the officer that while they were in the school bathroom, "I got jumped," and described details of the altercation, including that they "blacked out" while on the ground.

Nex recounted being in the bathroom with friends when they overheard comments about their group from a group of three girls that Nex had known for several days beforehand because of "antagonizing" conduct by the girls towards Nex.

Nex said they poured water on the girls, and then "They came at me. They grabbed on my hair. I grabbed onto them. I threw one of them into a paper towel dispenser and then they got my legs out from under me and got me on the ground."

Nex was then beaten by the girls and lost consciousness.

During the interview, the officer asked Nex why they had not reported the past conduct of the girls to the school, and Nex replied "I didn't really see the point in it."

Nex told the officer they told their family, and Sue said in the week before the incident, Nex described the conduct as "they're making comments, they're throwing stuff, they're calling us names" and Sue told Nex to ignore the girls.

The officer indicated it was possible the incident might be seen as "mutual" and Nex might also face charges if Sue pursued charges against the three girls, and Sue declined at that time.

The officer also said if Nex appeared to be injured beyond "scrapes" and "bruises", the officer could be contacted if seeking charges was reconsidered.

Nex was discharged later that day, and reportedly went to sleep with a sore head.

The following day, on February 8, while preparing to travel with their mother for an appointment, Nex collapsed in the family's living room.

Sue called 911, saying that Nex's eyes had rolled back and they were struggling to breathe.

Nex had stopped breathing by the time emergency medical technicians arrived, and was declared dead at the hospital that evening.

Dan Yancy, Owasso Police Chief, has said that "no report of the incident was made to the Owasso Police Department prior to the notification at the hospital".