A wave of protest has permeated LGBTQ communities across the country in the month following the death of Oklahoma’s 16-year-old Nex Benedict.
One day after being beaten by three girls who had previously made fun of them because of their gender identity, Benedict, a nonbinary student at Owasso High School in Owasso, Oklahoma, passed away on February 8.
Benedict’s dead name and incorrect pronouns were originally used in Tulsa local media outlets to cover the incident. A person who mentioned Benedict was nonbinary to them in a post on Instagram, who later came up with their story, and who still refers to them as “her” at the time.
On Mar. Worcester was the site of a global mourning wave. A ceremony in Benedict’s name was held at the YWCA of Central Massachusetts, attended by dozens of people, many of whom were transgender youth themselves.
With battery-operated vigil lights in our hands, our eyes fixed on a table in the front of the chamber, which contained a grouping of candles and a printed image of Benedict, and we were standing in a darkened room.
Finn Santora, a 15-year-old transgender boy around Benedict’s age, took to the microphone and spoke quietly but surely about his experiences as a transgender boy, addressing them at times directly through the transition from this life to the next.
Finn Santora said, “Sometimes I want to change anything about myself just to fit in.” “What happened to you, Nex, not only makes me nervous, because it could happen to me, but it also serves as a reminder to stand up for what I believe in.”
Violence against Transgender people may sound far off to some in Worcester, where the M.B. Lounge’s Pride flag flies high right next to the I-290 bridge.
However, those who would argue that a tragedy like Benedict’s dying cannot occur here are simply turning their backs on a slippery slope.
Before the ceremony, Oxford engineer Jai Santora, whose car co-sponsored the event, told me that her friends in Worcester County are frequently surprised by the bad treatment she frequently receives as a transgender woman.
According to Santora, “a lot of people who haven’t experienced discrimination often get the impression that it doesn’t exist because they’ve never personally experienced it.” “I can’t begin to tell you how many times someone has gone through this discrimination with me and was shocked when they said, ‘I can’t believe this kind of thing still happens.'”
One of the folks I was eating with had the exact same shocked reaction two weeks ago when I brought up Benedict’s story over dinner.
Nex Benedict and a group of girls made fun of them for being transgender and intersex on February 7 in the Tulsa district of Owasso.
Body camera footage from a hospital police interview later on February 7 shows Benedict recalling the altercation, saying, “They got my legs out from under me and got me on the ground and started beating the (expletive) out of me… I blacked out.”
On February 8, less than 24 hours later, Benedict collapsed in their mother’s living space. They were taken to a clinic where they were later declared dead.
Benedict was legally required to use the girls’ bathroom despite their gender because a state law passed in Oklahoma in 2022 mandates that students in all of the state’s public schools use restrooms and locker rooms that match the sex on their birth certificates.
According to Jai Santora, “transgender people are the ones who are in danger in these rooms.”
In Worcester’s public school system, gender-neutral rooms haven’t caused much discussion recently, but private institutions have.
Bishop Robert McManus of the Diocese of Worcester approved legislation in August 2023 that required all students in the diocese’s more than 20 schools to use pronouns, restrooms, and locker rooms related to their birth sex, essentially forcing transgender and intersex students at those institutions into the closet and preventing others from coming out.
Jai Santora expressed concern that McManus’ views may be shared by the Worcester school commission and the public school system in a town where the Democratic establishment has historically been Catholic.
“Many of our officials are influenced by a lot of spiritual leaders, who base their opinions on an outdated model of thought. There was a time when it was thought that the Devil would work if you were left-handed,” according to Jai Santora. “Jesus said that we are all children of God, and I would like for more spiritual leaders to adopt that philosophy.”
Transgender activists have voiced particular criticism against Oklahoma’s public schools since Jan. 1, when State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters appointed anti-LGBT social media influencer Chaya Raichik to a panel that reviews the content of public school books.
Raichik used her Chronicles of Tik Tok social media accounts in 2022 to condemn a teacher who was employed by the same high school where Benedict was beaten. Tyler Wrynn, the teacher, eventually resigned after receiving so much
online abuse from Raichik’s followers.
Once more, this might not seem relevant to Massachusetts until you recall the two bomb threats that forced Boston Children’s Hospital to initiate an evacuation in 2022.
In August of that year, Raichik falsely claimed that Boston Children’s Hospital performed hysterectomies on transgender teenagers in a number of tweets on Twitter, sparking a large, week-long harassment campaign against the hospital.
A Westfield woman called in the first bomb threat on August 30, 2022, and the subsequent threat came in via email on November 16, 2022, three weeks after Raichik began posting about the hospital.
The Gender Multispecialty Service at Boston Children’s Hospital, which provides care for transgender children, does not perform any gender-affirming surgeries on anyone under the age of 18.
On that cold and gloomy first evening of March, many speakers at the YWCA took turns at the microphone, the majority of them young trans people who carry the burden of being different at school every day and saw their personal lives reflected in every new detail that was revealed about Nex Benedict.
People who wanted to make a rally sign outside the gym door were given pieces of cardboard and permanent markers by a pair of volunteers behind a folding table. A girl sat to the side with a sign that condensed the ceremony into a single word.
“I Deserve to Grow Up,” the sign read.
