Greater than a dozen college students walked out of sophistication Monday at an Oklahoma highschool the place a 16-year-old nonbinary student was beaten inside a restroom earlier this month and died the next day.
College students and LGBTQ+ advocates held indicators that learn “You Are Loved” and “Protect Queer Kids” as they gathered at an intersection throughout from Owasso Excessive Faculty.
The scholars are demanding motion in opposition to discrimination and bullying of transgender and gender nonconforming college students after the loss of life of Nex Benedict, a 16-year-old pupil on the faculty who recognized as nonbinary and used they/them pronouns. Benedict, who died the day after a combat with three women inside a highschool restroom, had been the goal of bullying on the faculty, their household mentioned.
“Students and families are out in force today having to demand the basics: to be safe from bullying and violence,” the LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD mentioned in a press release. “It is appalling and shameful that Nex Benedict endured a year of anti-LGBTQ harassment, then a brutal beating in the school bathroom.”
The state medical expert’s workplace has not launched the trigger or method of Benedict’s loss of life, however a police spokesperson has mentioned preliminary outcomes present the loss of life was not the results of accidents suffered within the combat. Police are investigating the teenager’s loss of life and can ahead the findings of their investigation to the district legal professional’s workplace to find out what, if any, prison fees is perhaps filed.
Vigils honoring the teenager have been held across Oklahoma and the nation after information of Benedict’s loss of life.
