How to Keep Fighting When Your Heart is Broken
Nex Benedict deserves to be alive and thriving. It's our job now to make sure all queer and trans youth have that right.
Vol. 39
In This Issue: ESSAY | NOW READ THIS | LISTEN UP | FINAL FRAME
I have been thinking a lot about Nex Benedict, the 16-year-old indigenous, non-binary student who died after being assaulted in their school bathroom in Oklahoma last week. My heart breaks at news of yet another queer/trans young person whose life has been cut far too short. I am grieving and exhausted. I am also angry. So, so angry. This is an all-too familiar feeling these days.
None of this needed to happen. It’s clear that many people–adults in particular, the ones responsible for making sure children are safe and free–utterly failed Nex at so many different points along the way to this tragic outcome.
They were failed by the school that didn’t think to call an ambulance after finding them bloodied and beaten, and instead suspended them for two weeks for their own assault. They were failed by the hospital that sent them home after what I can only imagine was a cursory examination later that night. They were failed by police who have already bungled their response and/or covered up details of the incident. They were failed by the parents of those three girls who bullied and beat Nex and their other trans friend that day, three girls whose lives are forever changed. They were failed by Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt and Republican legislators who have passed the most anti-LGBTQ bills of any state, including a ban on trans and nonbinary students using bathrooms that align with their gender identity, eliminating gender-affirming care for minors, and defining only a narrow, binary recognition of gender.
They were failed by the State Superintendent of Schools, Ryan Walters, for his consistently homophobic and transphobic comments and policies, and for hiring anti-LGBTQ digital terrorist Chaya Raichik to sit on the state’s library advisory committee. Raichik’s “LibsofTiktok” social media accounts have been responsible for spreading anti-LGBTQ hate that’s led directly to threats and acts of physical violence directed toward the people she features, usually in misleadingly edited photos/videos. One of the targets of Raichik’s handiwork was a teacher at Nex’s school that Nex admired. The teacher was forced to resign in 2022 after they were featured in a LibsofTikTok video stating their support for LGBTQ kids in the face of bigotry from their own parents.
Nex and every other queer/trans person who has been killed or died by suicide in the face of this kind of hatred and bias have been failed by our entire society, one that allows and even outright encourages such rhetoric, violence, and oppressive laws. Just six weeks into 2024, there are already 400+ bills introduced nationwide that directly target the rights and lives of transgender people.
Nex should have been able to live a long and vibrant life. They shouldn’t only be known to us because they’ve been made into a victim of hate (and please read some excellent profiles/remembrances of who Nex was–not just how they died).
All young people, especially our queer and trans youth, deserve to live long and vibrant lives–free from discrimination and hate. After weeks like this, though, it feels like we’ve a frustratingly long way to go before we live in that world.
I was a queer/trans young person going to school in Oklahoma, once. I spent my junior and senior year at a high school in the south central part of the state. It’s where I took my first, tentative steps out of the closet. It’s where I found a surprising (to me) number of like-minded weird kids–some of them queer and trans, many of them not–who bucked the stereotypes I’d been taught growing up in the North about folks from this “red” state. They were kind and radical and trying to grow beyond the stifling gender and social norms of the Bible Belt.
I did face bullying while I lived there, based largely on my perceived gender and presentation and unwillingness to squeeze myself into any particular box for other people’s comfort. It got bad enough that I skipped a lot of school to avoid class with my most consistent bully. Eventually, the school called my dad and asked why I had been so absent, and I finally caved and told him what was going on. To his credit, he was outraged and demanded to talk with the teacher who oversaw the class where the bullying was happening. The teacher–who I know for a fact had witnessed and declined to meaningfully intervene even when the bullying involved physical assault–claimed ignorance to what was happening. He called for a meeting with us and the kid and his parents, but the other parents never showed. We had a surface-level conversation about things, the other kid promised to stop, and that was it. Needless to say, the bullying didn’t end, it just became less physical or obvious. I muddled through.
It seems wild to think that my experience in the late ‘90s was actually somewhat better than what Nex and others are dealing with now. It’s not that there was a lot more understanding of or compassion toward queerness or transness in the ‘90s (hoo boy, no). But the silver lining is that our identities were not at the time so heavily politicized. Specifically, queer and trans kids (and adults) weren’t the targets of a tidal wave of legislation meant to strip us of our rights, push us out of public life, demonize and dehumanize us–all as part of a rising wave of outright fascism by one of the major political parties, to boot.
And the thing is, while Nex’s death and the death of so many other queer and trans people might galvanize those of us already in the fight to do more, fight harder (which is good, and we should)--the people who are most responsible for those deaths only seem to be doubling down on their fuckery.
Take superintendent Walters, for example. Asked about Nex’s death, he admitted that it was a “tragedy” but it hasn’t altered his bigoted views at all. Interviewed by the New York Times, Walters said, “There’s not multiple genders. There’s two. That’s how God created us.” He said “he did not believe that nonbinary or transgender people exist” and that the state would not let students use names or pronouns other than those matching their birth records.
He goes on to accuse “radical leftists” of “politicizing” Nex’s death. This is of course too rich, coming from a guy who has been actively contributing to the far right’s politicization of LGBTQ+ people’s very existence for cynical electoral gain.
This is what we’re up against. There is an entrenched bigotry against queer and trans people that may come from a particularly vocal and virulent minority, but that has successfully poisoned the national well. Some days it feels downright overwhelming. Some days it is difficult not to give in to despair.
So while our grief, sadness, and anger are all real and valid and something I am trying to give myself grace and time to feel, it’s just as important for me not to curl in on myself and become hopeless. Because there are so many people out there fighting the good fight, day in and day out. There are so many queer and trans kids (and adults!) who need this community to keep being the vibrant, diverse, unruly, spectacular beacon of hope that it is.
“Hope is a discipline,” as Mariame Kaba says.
Those of us who have been blessed to live into adulthood are lighthouses. Queer and trans elders are as precious as our youth. And we owe it to them, to each other, and to ourselves to keep the lights on and shining brightly. Flaming, even.
I’m looking to organizations like Freedom Oklahoma, who are fighting for LGBTQ+ people’s rights and well-being in that state. There’s also Oklahomans for Equality, Trans Advocacy Coalition of Oklahoma, and Rainbow Youth Project USA.
Here in Wisconsin, we have GSAFE, Fair Wisconsin, OutReach, Freedom Inc, Diverse and Resilient, and many others. There are lots of ways to get plugged in, wherever you feel comfortable and/or where there’s something you can offer (and we can all offer something).
I’m here for the vigils and the marches and campaigns and voting for candidates who will fight on behalf of LGBTQ+ people. I think it’s going to take even more than that to really build the world we want to see–one where everyone is free to be true to themselves. It’s going to take difficult conversations and boundary-setting with family and friends and community. It’s going to take meaningful, restorative/transformative justice practices when harm is done. It’s going to take a full dismantling and rebuilding of our political and electoral systems, frankly, because the Democratic Party, while including members who are truly doing the work, is by-and-large run by “moderates” who, let’s be honest, too often coast to victory and power off doing the absolute bare minimum for LGBTQ people or any minoritized group.
We need radical, imaginative change. The hard truth is that we are going to experience more death and violence and other setbacks along the way. We have to consistently dream and model something better. We have to show the world that our vision of the world is heathier and happier for everyone–more loving, more open, more free. That none of what’s happening now is inevitable or unchangeable. That we will not stand idly by and let it happen.
There is no going back, no matter how hard the forces aligned against us kick and scream and lash out.
Then let my broken heart be knit together with the glorious fucking rainbow threads of my community. Let the death throes of bigotry and hate/fear be the fertilizer for our revolution.
Rest in power, Nex.
(If you or anyone you know needs to talk to someone/is in crisis, please call 988 for the 24 hour national crisis and suicide prevention hotline. LGBTQ young people can also reach the Rainbow Youth Project’s crisis line directly at +1 (317) 643-4888)
Now Read This.
“Six things to know about Wisconsin’s new legislative maps” [The Cap Times]
Glory hallelujah, Wisconsin finally has fair maps! Get a quick look at what this means for future elections and the political balance of power in the state.
“‘It’s a new day in Wisconsin.’ Your votes made that happen” [Dan Shafer at The Recombobulation Area]
This new map — Wisconsin’s new map! — projects to put a Democratic majority in the State Assembly in play this year, but Republicans will probably still be favored to win there, and because only half of the State Senate will be on this year’s ballot, it won’t be until 2026 that a Democratic majority, and potential trifecta, will be a realistic possibility.
“Rural districts are fair again, but can Democrats win them over?” [Christina Lieffring at Capitol Punishments]
Democrats, with that zero-sum, “only-invest-where-we-can-win” strategy, have divested from heavily gerrymandered, often rural areas. Democratic campaigns in those areas are going to be functioning as startups that have to convince their audience that even though they’ve been ignored for years, “we really care about you now.”
Listen Up.
One of my bandmates and all-around good people, Charlie Koczela, has a delightful, well-produced podcast with his sister Ellie called World History 24. It’s an approachable, engaging crash-course in the entirety of human history, packed into 24, one-hour episodes. I highly recommend it! You can find it on all podcast platforms, including Apple.
Final Frame.
Washington Square Park, NYC.
Donate: Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund.
‘Til Next Time.
Thanks for reading and for standing up for your friends and neighbors! Take care of each other out there.
Always feel free to hit me up with questions, comments, suggestions, and tips on great hiking spots or good books. And please feel free to forward this email to a friend and/or hit that subscribe button. xoxo