False information and unhinged takes from Kansas queer activists over the death of nonbinary teen Nex Benedict
Nex Benedict, a 16-year-old nonbinary student from Oklahoma, has made national news after their death following an attack in the bathroom of their government school. Queer activists across the country, including here in Kansas, have been speaking out against violence targeting trans and nonbinary individuals after the death. Vigils have been held in honor of Benedict such as the one hosted at South Park in Lawrence, KS which has speakers from groups and activists such as Monique Mercurio, Trans Lawrence Coalition, Equality Kansas, and Democratic Socialists of America.
I do want to be clear, as someone who is gay, and really just as a person in general, I do think what happened to Benedict is a tragedy. A life lost, regardless of whose life it is, is a tragedy. However, especially because I am a gay person, I do not like it when lies and misinformation get spread surrounding a tragedy—which regularly happens in cases involving LGBT people (you can look at the Pulse Night Club shooting as one of the most famous cases in which lies from queer activists created a narrative completely different from reality).
It is important to note that there is misinformation in the above flyer. The sentence, “Nex was beaten to death by their classmates at Owasso High School in the state of Oklahoma,” is incorrect. Nevertheless, this hasn’t stopped queer activists from spreading this false information.
Prior to the autopsy report, activists were already stating that Benedict was beaten to death in the bathroom and media outlets just ran with the narrative. However, preliminary information from an autopsy report conducted by the State Medical Examiner’s Office has only recently been revealed, and this narrative has aged like milk.
Police Department Chief Dan Yancey provided a statement to The Advocate, shedding light on the investigation’s progress:
“On February 7th, 2024, at approximately 3:30 p.m., the Owasso Police Department was summoned to a local hospital in reference to a report of a student who had been involved in a physical altercation at the Owasso High School prior to the end of school that day. No report of the incident was made to the Owasso Police Department prior to the notification at the hospital. Information was taken by a School Resource Officer who responded to the hospital. On February 8th, 2024, the Owasso Police Department was made aware that the juvenile was rushed back to a hospital, where the student was pronounced dead. It is not known at this time if the death is related to the incident at the school or not. A thorough investigation is being conducted by Owasso Police Detectives who are currently awaiting an autopsy report and toxicology results.”
On February 21, according to the police, trauma was not the cause of death, meaning Benedict wasn’t beaten to death. Police still don’t know the cause of death and are currently waiting for the toxicology report.
Furthermore, Kansas extremists have said some really unhinged things regarding the incident. The First Kansas Anti-Fascist Brigade posted the following to social media:
As someone who does typically lean right on political issues and does regularly interact with Republicans, I can assure you that this is not something that the majority of Republicans want. I do think there are extremists on the right who would be okay with this, but those people are few and far between and do not represent the vast majority of Republicans.
As far as this idea that Republicans “poured the gas and lit the match” is also disingenuous. Queer activists and so-called journalists have suggested that people like Chaya Raichik who runs ‘Libs of TikTok’ are responsible for the death of Benedict.
“We blamed Nex’s death on Chaya and she denied that she’s responsible”
— Chaya Raichik (@ChayaRaichik10) February 23, 2024
This is how they try to link me to a death and get their readers to think I’m connected somehow.
You really don’t hate journalists enough. pic.twitter.com/HANi6EaBRI
There are two specific reasons why queer activists have tied Raichik to this death. For one, Raichik was appointed to the Oklahoma Department of Education’s Library Media Advisory Committee in January. I will admit that this is weird as she has no real qualifications to be on the committee and doesn’t even live in Oklahoma. The second reason is due to a viral TikTok from 2022 that Libs of TikTok shared where an 8th grade teacher from Owasso Middle School said, “Hey, just so you know, if your parents don’t love and accept you for who you are this Christmas, f*ck your parents. I’m your parents now.”
This resulted in the teacher resigning.
I want to be clear, blaming people for the actions of others is not okay. It takes the blame away from the people who are actually responsible for misdeeds. No one should be blamed for what another person has done because no one can control what others do.
The last thing I want to note is the sentence, “They frame their transphobia as protecting the children, but they are literally killing the children.”
I can’t think of a better sentence to make people who don’t have a clue about anything that’s going on be afraid. It needs to be understood most of the bills queer activists say are “transphobic” are bills that most people would agree are common sense such as not allowing biological males to compete in sports against biological females and not allowing minors to receive transitioning services. These are not bills to murder queer children. In fact, if we look at Sweden, the first country to legalize gender transitions in 1972, what we find is that they stopped allowing gender transitions for minors as recently as 2020 because it was “experimental” with little to no evidence that it was beneficial for minors and they found the services were actually more harmful to minors rather than helpful. It would seem as though queer activists would actually support restrictions on minors if they actually cared about the health and wellbeing of LGBT minors.
Again, the death of Benedict is a tragedy, but I do not condone propagandizing the death of anyone for a political ideology. The fact that queer activists are constantly doing so makes it seem as though they don’t actually care about queer people, they care about fear mongering people into blindly supporting causes for their own political ideologies and monetary gain.
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Ian Brannan
Ian Brannan is an independent journalist who founded The Kansas Constitutional in April 2022. His work focuses on issues including abortion, Convention of States, drug policy, education, government, LGBT issues, media, and more.
