Nex Benedict, a 16-year-old Oklahoma student who identified as nonbinary and preferred they/them pronouns, died on February 8, a day after a fight at Owasso High School. It is unclear whether the injuries that Nex suffered in the fight contributed to their death. But in a story published on Wednesday, The New York Times implicitly blames the altercation on an Oklahoma law that requires students to use restrooms that correspond with the sex "identified on the individual's original birth certificate." Details that the Times omitted cast doubt on that framing, which The Independent also pushed in a story headlined "Oklahoma Banned Trans Students From Bathrooms. Now a Bullied Student Is Dead After a Fight."
Nex, whose given name was Dagny, was biologically female, and the fight happened in a girls' bathroom, where Nex and another student reportedly were assaulted by "three older female students." Although Nex apparently was bullied for identifying as nonbinary, it looks like the location of the fight was incidental.
