"And he spoke about time travelers, and then he.."

- lee! next christmas, take a vacation. just don’t be here. - right! thanks. thanks, doctor! see you around, grace. happy new year!

SAY THEIR NAME: Nex Benedict, another 16 YEAR OLD was murdered in Oklahoma, news channels are deadnaming and misgendering them, just like with Brianna Ghey here in the UK. But I urge you to not let your grief drive you to despair. GET ANGRY. Do not become apathetic, do not let grief numb you. Stand united as a community, lean on each other, have each others back. Reach out to any trans individuals of any age and make sure they have support in some capacity. Speak with your family, your political representatives, your school, anywhere, with anyone, that may be able to make some change, whether big or small. Everything builds, that is the power of a movement, of solidarity. If you make life a bit safer for one trans youth once, then you may have saved their life that day. And that kid might then show some other kid that there is hope, and so they live as well. And it grows.

Owasso is notorious for being a “daddy’s money” school and unfortunately a lot gets swept under the rug because of that. I want to point out immediately the huge mistakes that both the school staff, police and the hospital made. I will preface that a lot of information is being withheld, so please recognize this as my own interpretation and much may not be completely accurate.

Firstly, I’ll start off with what has been shared. Allegedly, the altercation was deescalated by a teacher who found the three older girls brutally assaulting Nex in the Owasso High School bathroom. A statement from Nex’s mother described Nex as “Having their head repeatedly thrashed across the bathroom floor.” Despite this, the teacher failed to accompany Nex, who could hardly walk by themself, to the nurse. The school failed to contact any sort of school resource officer or get any kind of medical treatment for Nex.

Nex was taken to the hospital after school where they were treated and then for some, unfathomable reason, was discharged. The next day, Nex returned to the hospital where they then died. Medical reports have not been released and neither has the cause of death. However, police are attempting to push the agenda that Nex may have had a medical condition or that they died of natural causes.

The identities of the girls who did this to Nex have not been shared and it is hard to determine wether they will be tried as adults, if they are tried at all, because as I previously mentioned, Owasso is notorious for trying to cover up anything that may “damage their reputation”. We don’t even know if this will be charged as a hate crime, as hate crimes are highly difficult to prove and be convicted for. But it is unmistakable that there was intention to cause harm to Nex, and whether the assailants show remorse or not will have an effect in any court hearing.

I will end here, but if anyone would like to speak about it with me, or even receive updates (as my own school’s resource officer is going to be contacting the Owasso department, which will then be shared back with my criminology class) please feel free to DM me.