50,000 signatures reached
To: Department of Justice
Justice for Nex! We demand an investigation NOW!
On February 7, after a year of being bullied, Nex Benedict, a 16-year-old Choctaw Indigenous gender-fluid teen in Oklahoma, was brutally assaulted in a bathroom by their classmates and died the next day.
Nex had been repeatedly bullied at school for being gender-fluid—bullying that had been sanctioned by the state and the school district. In 2022, the same district forced a teacher to resign after Chaya Raichik posted a video of him allying with LGBTQ+ children. Stitt's bathroom bill put a target on trans and nonbinary children's backs. And after Nex was attacked by three girls in the bathroom, not only did school officials not call an ambulance for Nex's extensive injuries, they actually suspended Nex. Nex collapsed and died the next day.
The Department of Justice needs to conduct a civil rights investigation into Nex's death to find any wrongdoing and to protect the LGBTQ+ children that remain in the school and in the district.
Why is this important?
Nex had been bullied for months after Gov. Stitt made it mandatory by law for Oklahoma public school students to use only bathrooms that match their sex assigned at birth. Stitt's administration recently appointed Chaya Raichik—a right-wing activist known for targeting LGBTQ+ teachers—to the Library Media Advisory Committee of the state Department of Education, even after she targeted Nex's school district last year after a teacher voiced their support for the LGBTQ+ community.
We cannot allow these disgusting and violent policies and rhetoric to continue anywhere in the United States. Elected officials hold so much power with their words, actions and legislation.
Every year that conservatives are allowed to throw temper tantrums about the advancement of civil rights, the quality of life for LGBTQ+ people, particularly trans and nonbinary people, deteriorates. We must hold elected officials and Republicans accountable for their transphobic, homophobic, and violent rhetoric. School officials completely and totally failed Nex. And the blame lies not just with them but also with Gov. Stitt and his cruel administration.
LGBTQ+ and gender-diverse students deserve to learn without fear of bullying, harassment, or violence. They deserve to love and be loved for who they are. And they deserve to live long, full lives. Nex was robbed of their future, and their family, friends, and community will spend the rest of their lives grieving what was taken. In Nex's memory, we have to fight to make sure that the bullying, violence, and hate that killed Nex, as well as the negligence that followed, do not happen to any other LGBTQ+ or gender-diverse child in Oklahoma or anywhere in the United States.
Will you take action now and sign the petition?
#JusticeForNex