Welcome to my world.

Their name was Nex Benedict.

They were 16 years old and deserved to live for many more years.

I can’t stop thinking about them and how every adult in that school and state failed them.

How the hateful rhetoric and dog whistle bathroom bills pushed by far right religious extremists led to this tragedy.

3 older teen girls beat them so badly they died from their injuries. Nex was murdered by hate.

We have been warning that the legal targeting of the trans community recently was going to lead to tragedy like this. We have been screaming from the rooftops that the right wing isn’t protecting anyone. And here we are.

I will continue to do what I can in the off line space to make the world safer for my community.

they are choctaw.

native women and two-spirits are at the highest risk of sexual assault and domestic violence of any group. natives as a whole are at the highest risk for suicide. natives are also tied with Black americans for risk of being killed, both by police and by others.

it's critical to note that more than 90% of violence done against natives is committed by non-natives. this is a colonial issue, it's a genocide issue, it's an anti-indigenous issue.

when it comes to indians, our intersectional identities are often erased in favor of more visible or mainstream marginalizations like sex and gender.

this same thing happened when ezra miller kidnapped an indigenous teen. it happened when a nurse assaulted a native coma patient and she became pregnant and gave birth in her hospital bed. our indigenous identity is barely mentioned, despite this being a multinational crisis.

please learn more about the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) movement here, here, and here

and please spread the word about this

(full official request by HRC president Kelley Robinson)

this request is also being backed by Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.), and Nex's death has been acknowledged by Kamala Harris on Twitter

I really, really hope that these increasingly public calls for justice in Nex Benedict's assault and death lead to more action... this tragedy has finally recieved coverage in publications like USA Today, CNN, NBC, and even The New York Times

There's still more than 800 thousand people left there!

Do NOT stop talking about this!!!

...It's a start.

ETA: for those of you interested in a.cause-and-effect description of why this has happened now and what it's based on (as the formal charges haven't yet been released), this Twitter thread is a good source.