COMMENTARY
Ross D. Johnson
Illustration, Adobe Images and The Oklahoma Eagle
“From the beginning of this investigation, Owasso Police observed many indications that this death was the result of suicide.”
The Oklahoma Medical Examiner’s summary report, published on March 13, revealed what many Oklahomans both suspected and feared, that Nex Benedict did not find sufficient hope from the genuine and profound support of their family and community, that the promise of tomorrow was inspiring enough to rise once again, or that they could continue to stand against a culture of hatred championed by fellow Owasso High School students, state officials, and conservative political ideologues.
The summary report is also a haunting reminder for many Oklahoma parents and guardians of the state’s suicide statistical rating. According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, suicide is the second leading cause of death of Oklahomans between the ages of 10-34. Nationally, Oklahoma has the 13th highest rate of suicide amongst all states. From 2013-2017, more than 3,700 Oklahomans died from suicide, exceeding deaths by motor vehicle crashes, highlighted in reporting provided by the Oklahoma State Department of Health. Further, OSDH reporting highlights that suicides outpace homicides almost 3 to 1.
For parents, families and friends, a new journey begins as a life ends, an often-lifelong discovery for what weighed so heavily upon the spirit and soul of their son, daughter, niece, nephew, and friend.
What they learn, at least, and consistently, is that the person for whom so much love was shared, endured years of bullying, torment, public ridicule, state-backed efforts to restrict their narratives from being shared, fear mongering, and a general culture of hate.
“But I didn’t pull the trigger”
The facts, unfortunately, haven’t given rise to a state political or community movement committed to stemming the tide of youth suicides. Instead, far-right conservatives throughout Oklahoma have rallied around a call to shame those who refuse to embrace their traditional beliefs, weaponize religious orthodoxy and give themselves grace to demean and slander. The outcome of what may be objectively regarded as hate, is too often a state medical examiner’s report revealing yet another cause of death as suicide.
Nex, the 16-year-old Owasso High School student who died one day after being beaten by other students in the school’s bathroom, briefly hospitalized and released, now posthumously serves as another stark reminder of how the weight of hateful rhetoric, political policies, and failed leadership impact the lives of young Oklahomans whose sin against the state is innocently ‘being themselves.’
The wage of such sin is ridicule, torment, harassment, bullying, state legislative efforts to ban discussions about identity, and hate-filled public discourse encouraged on social media.
Should our children grow weary of the assault against their identity, their persons, find no respite or lasting hope for a civil existence, and leave us by way of suicide, they will be blamed for their own destruction.
Minutes after the Oklahoma Medical Examiner’s summary report was shared by the Owasso Police Department on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter) Libs of TikTok account followers began to demand an apology from local and national media, LGBTQ+ advocacy groups, and Oklahomans who attributed the violence and hatred experienced by Nex to the social media handle’s rhetoric.
“This Nex girl was bullying some girls in school. They fought back and she then intentionally overdosed on Prozac and Benadryl because her parents abused her.”
“It is nice to be vindicated.”
“I hope the left stops villainizing you over this, although I realize that’s a tall order. You’re owed countless apologies.”
“It wasn’t the fight with others, it was the fight with self.”
Chaya Raichik, a recent appointee to the Oklahoma Library Media Advisory Committee by Ryan Walters, the Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction, is the creator of Libs of TikTok, a social media community that features anti-trans posts and often shares poorly contextualized clips of educators intended to boost accusations of a ‘Woke Agenda’ being imposed upon children.
Last August, Libs of TikTok featured an edited video of Union Public Schools librarian Kirby Mackenzie with a caption overlay “POV: Teachers in your state are dropping like flies but you are still just not quite finished pushing your Woke Agenda at the public school.” The edited video compelled the social media community’s members to call for her termination and posted memes suggesting that educators are promoting an anti-white agenda and claims eventual pedophilia.
Chris Payne, spokesman for Union Public Schools, noted that “Libs of TikTok omitted a really key thing that Raichik said that was kind of a wink meant to be an ironic comment, and by omitting it, it really affected how people perceived the video.”
The comment was, “’My woke agenda is teaching kids to love books and be kind,’” Payne said, “So that’s a pretty big omission.”
Walters contributed to the false claim, and the fervor of far-right activists, by reposting the edited video with the comment “Democrats say it doesn’t exist. The liberal media denies the issue. Even some Republicans hide from it. Woke ideology is real and I am here to stop it.”
Walters and Raichik, lacking any apparent concern for the safety of the Union Public Schools teacher or students, promoted the false narrative of a ‘Woke Agenda’ intended to disparage white Oklahomans.
In the days that followed, Ellen Ochoa Elementary School received emailed bomb threats, referencing the educator, Mackenzie, maligned by Walters and Raichik.
“The innocence of children is sacred, that is a fact that has been known for the entirety of human history and the end of civilizations such as in ancient Rome are often marked by normalization pedophilia and child abuse. I’m not going to stand by as you b******s continue to indoctrinate and prey upon our children. This is why we placed a bomb in the school. You will evacuate the building so nobody dies,” said ‘Made John,’ the anonymous sender.
The email also called out Ellen Ochoa Elementary librarian Mackenzie and said her house would be “blown up” as well.
Walters’ staff defended the superintendent’s actions with a statement that read, in part, “The issue here is the employee’s actions, that’s why Supt. Walters commented on it. Supt. Walters will continue to do what voters elected him to do — hold schools and their employees accountable for educating young Oklahomans.”
Neither apology nor explanation were offered by Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, Walters or Raichik to the school district’s families and students.
Sue Benedict, Nex’s mother, would also find no comfort from apologies or expressions of sympathy from the governor or his representatives.
Raichik would continue to gain audience engagement with Libs of TikTok, as many of its members embraced the medical examiner’s report as a “vindication” of their behavior, against claims of nurturing a culture of hate. Libs of TikTok members immediately distanced the social media community’s rhetoric from the death of Benedict and the harassment endured by Oklahoma’s SPLGBTQ+ community.
The members’ (Libs of TikTok) “but I didn’t pull the trigger” trope was quickly advanced in defense of their behavior. Apologies from news media and community activists were soon in order, and the weight of their past sentiments forgotten.
Benedict’s trauma and death are not without precedent in Oklahoma.
Broken Heart Land, an Outcast Films production (Reading, Pa.), explores the life of Zachary Harrington, a gay Norman, Okla., teen who committed suicide in 2010. Harrington’s suicide followed an hours-long and contentious Norman City Council Meeting the week prior (Sept. 28, 2010), where members of the community candidly debated both support for and opposition against a proposed LGBTQ History Month.
Harrington’s family and friends don’t singularly attribute Zachary’s suicide to the sentiments shared during the fall meeting. Van Harrington, Zachary’s father, recalls that his son, then living in Arkansas, drove back to his hometown in support of the proposed month-long recognition, certainly prepared by his experiences for many years.
In “Broken Heart Land,” the documentary unearths “the searing pain of prejudice and misinformation” experienced by Zachary and how the toxic culture within Norman “led their son to hide his HIV positive status and forgo treatment.”
Zachary, like Nex, experienced a ‘toxic’ blend of unrestrained ridicule and threats within the walls of Oklahoma’s public schools. The incidents were fueled by, certainly, a lacking accountability employed by educators and school administrators. Zachary’s circumstance was made far more perilous as his refusal to seek treatment for HIV meant that he would awaken each morning fully aware of the fact that his fear of being further ostracized would dictate the remaining moments shared with his family.
Stephen Brower, a 17-year-old openly gay Tulsa, Okla., high school student, would later share both his sorrow and empathy about the suicide of Harrington in “A Letter to Zach Harrington,” published by This Land Press in December 2010. Brower’s written voice echoed many of the same experiences endured by Oklahoma LGBTQ youth. Of significance, was the characterization of Oklahoma’s “toxic” culture.
The moralists’ obsession with sexual identity
The conditions fermented by the hate-filled rhetoric of Oklahoma’s governing officials and far-right constituency is too often a burden deemed unbearable by young Oklahomans. The Trevor Project, a national nonprofit organization and the leading suicide prevention organization for LGBTQ young people, found that 48% of LGBTQ youth in Oklahoma seriously considered suicide in the past year. Highlighted in the organization’s annual reporting, the 2022 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health Oklahoma, are critical insights into the suicide risks faced by LGBTQ young people, top barriers to mental health care, the prevalence of anti-LGBTQ victimization, and the negative impacts of recent politics.
Challenges faced by LGBTQ youth in Oklahoma are not simply the public rhetoric shared across common media and microaggressions. They are the extensions of such behavior, represented by threats of violence, bullying, overt discrimination and state legislative actions drafted to fight against the false narratives of grooming and indoctrination.
State officials, including Walters, risk giving credence to such irrational fears by promoting misinformation about Oklahoma educators and casting LGBTQ youth as persons who intend to disrupt the order of class instruction and demand accommodations not afforded to others.
Oklahoma’s civic leaders, by intent or a willful ignorance, give legitimacy to the hate and fear stoked by misinformation. It is this hate and fear that creates and nurtures a state culture of “us versus them,” as evidenced by state-based reporting. According to The Trevor Project, 47% of Oklahoma’s LGBTQ youth experienced threat or harm based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
Of those surveyed, 82% shared that they experienced discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
The Oklahoma state legislator, working in earnest of Stitt’s and Walters’ agenda, has quietly advanced legislation targeting LGBTQ and diverse communities. According to reporting published by the American Civil Liberties Union, an American nonprofit human rights advocacy organization, as of March 2024, more than 50 bills being considered by the Oklahoma legislature seek to regulate parental authority regarding gender medical treatments, limit the scope of sex education school curriculum, redefine gender, and censure private acts.
By any objective measure Oklahoma state legislators regard Benedict, Harrington, Browers and the LGBTQ community as a threat to the state’s and country’s moral foundation.
Senate Bill 1677, sponsored by Republican Sen. Julie Daniels, would subordinate the universally recognized “Best Interest of the Child” legal standard, elevating the religious beliefs of foster parents being considered by the state of Oklahoma.
In text, SB 1677 would prevent the Oklahoma Department of Human Services from requiring that “any current or prospective adoptive or foster parent to affirm, accept, or support any government policy regarding sexual orientation or gender identity that conflicts with the parent’s sincerely held religious or moral beliefs.”
In practice, SB 1677 restricts OKDHS from mandating that potential foster or adoptive care parents affirm or accept any government policy (“Best Interest of the Child) regarding gender identity or sexual orientation if it conflicts with their sincerely held moral or religious beliefs.
Josh Payton, an attorney and co-founder of Oklahoma Equality Law Center, challenged Republican legislators’ motives with the direct observation and question, “The argument from [the legislators] is that the best interest of the child remains the standard, [so] how can this be so when this new standard would provide a legal support for the placement of kids in unsupportive homes?”
Oklahoma’s political hostile environment extends well beyond adoptive care. House Bill 3120, explicitly prohibits “Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties in schools and charter schools on sexual orientation or gender identity shall not occur in prekindergarten through grade twelve.”
The proposed legislation (HB 3120) sponsor, Republican Rep. Danny Williams, has now positioned the state as the arbiter of sexual identity and orientation.
“It shall be the policy of every public school or charter school that is provided or authorized by the Oklahoma Constitution and state laws that a person’s sex is an immutable biological trait and that it is false to ascribe to a person a pronoun that does not correspond to the person’s sex,” the bill notes.
The Oklahoma legislature’s efforts have also yielded a host of other bills that further restrict objective discussions of topics that it regards as a threat to the moral fabric of the state, at the expense of communities that seek nothing greater than to live without state-backed prejudice and the hate-filled rhetoric nurtured by fear and ignorance.
For the LGBTQ community, no respite may be found in the state of Oklahoma.
“Their” lives will continue to be subject to the whims of those who turn a blind eye away from “their” suffering.
“Their” sovereign right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness will be ignored.
“Their” agency dismissed.
“Their” deaths used as fodder for the justification of hate.
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