When Sue Kerr heard that a teenager who had died after being beaten in a high school bathroom was nonbinary, she started a process that she’d done more than 300 times before: She investigated, wrote an “in memoriam” post for her blog Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents, shared the piece and waited for mainstream media to pick it up.
But that didn’t happen this time.
For several days, there was just silence. People read about 16-year-old Oklahoma student Nex Benedict’s death — Kerr estimates that her post had 100,000 views in the first 24 hours — and talked about Benedict on social media, but mainstream news outlets stayed quiet. Several local outlets had reported on Benedict’s death shortly after it occurred on Feb. 8, but they misgendered Benedict and used their birth name. It wasn’t until Feb. 20, four days after Kerr published her reporting, that other publications started to report on Benedict’s identity.
“What happened in this case is so far out of context of what typically happens that I’m not sure if it’s an anomaly or if it’s an indicator of a cultural shift or media reporting shift,” said Kerr, who has been covering the deaths of transgender, nonbinary and gender nonconforming individuals for more than a decade. “Considering how many points in the story are actually tied to very topical political debates and issues, it just seemed to me that it would be picked up right away.”
Benedict died one day after they were involved in a fight with three girls in a bathroom at Owasso High School, just outside Tulsa. Benedict reportedly suffered multiple head injuries and later went to the hospital, where they told police that the girls had previously bullied them. Benedict went home, but the next day, their mother called 911 as Benedict’s breathing grew shallow. Authorities have not yet determined the cause of death.
The first few local news stories were sparse in detail and largely based on police reports. By Feb. 10, KJRH in Tulsa was reporting details of the fight, but they and other outlets were still referring to Benedict with the wrong pronouns. (Some outlets later noted that they had based their reporting on information from Benedict’s family.)
Kerr received a tip on Feb. 12 that Benedict was nonbinary. After combing through social media accounts belonging to Benedict’s family and friends, she confirmed that Benedict used they/them pronouns and went by the name Nex.
Kerr posted her write-up on a Friday. Though she acknowledged that news operations generally slow over the weekend, she was still surprised that national outlets weren’t reporting on it. Even the local reporters who had been following the story failed to connect the dots between Benedict’s death and their identity.
“It’s shocking because this is a kid in Oklahoma, which is right at the center of this incredible debate about the humanity of LGBTQ people,” Kerr said.
The Oklahoma state legislature has introduced more than 50 anti-LGBTQ+ bills this year alone, according to the Human Rights Campaign. The state has a number of anti-trans laws already in place, including a ban on gender-affirming care for trans minors and a law requiring public school students to use bathrooms matching the sex listed on their birth certificates. In August, Gov. Kevin Stitt signed an executive order narrowly defining gender-related terms like “woman” and “man,” excluding people who identify outside of the gender binary.
Owasso Public Schools, where Benedict was a student, has also been a focus of far-right activist Chaya Raichik, who uses her social media account Libs of TikTok to target LGBTQ+ people. In 2022, Raichik called eighth grade former Owasso teacher Tyler Wrynn a “predator” after he posted a video saying he would support students whose parents don’t accept them for who they are. Wrynn subsequently received death threats and faced harassment, and he later resigned.
Raichik, who has only visited Oklahoma once, was named to a state committee last month to review the contents of public school libraries. Raichik has previously advocated for the removal of books touching on LGBTQ+ themes from schools.
Several LGBTQ+ journalists made the connection between Raichik and Owasso. On Feb. 18, nonbinary blogger Vishal Singh published a piece on progressive news site the Daily Kos about Benedict’s death. The next day, Brody Levesque, the editor-in-chief of LGBTQ+ publication the Los Angeles Blade, covered the story.
Levesque said he knew immediately that Benedict’s death was a story that required national attention, especially given the history of Owasso Public Schools. After writing his story, Levesque started calling advocacy organizations like the Human Rights Campaign and GLAAD to tell them they needed to publicize the incident. It was the first time he’d done this for a story.
“Generally, I try to not be an activist, an advocate, if you will. I try to do my job. But this one just resonated too deeply with me because of the pile-on with Libs of TikTok, the 400-plus pieces of anti-trans, anti-queer legislation, not to mention the pile-on of legislation from last year,” Levesque said. “I think this was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
From there, the story broke through to LGBTQ+ publications and then to mainstream outlets. On Feb. 20, KJRH — which had been following the story from the beginning — updated its piece with a note that it had heard “conflicting comments” about Benedict’s gender identity and pronouns. That same day, the Tulsa World, which had previously run a short piece based on the initial police press release, reported a more in-depth story on the police’s investigation into Benedict’s death.
The Oklahoman, based in Oklahoma City and the state’s largest paper, covered the story for the first time on Feb. 21. Many national outlets followed suit.
KJRH, the Tulsa World and The Oklahoman did not respond to a request for comment.
Kerr has two theories about the delay in coverage. The first is a lack of resources. Many news organizations have suffered budget cuts and layoffs in recent years, forcing them to do more with smaller staffs.
The other is a general devaluation of the trans community stemming from the recent rise in anti-trans rhetoric. Through her work memorializing trans people who have been killed, Kerr has noticed that more and more young people have been dying — often at the hands of other young people. The effects of anti-trans rhetoric extend beyond just Benedict and Oklahoma, Kerr said.
“I think if a cisgender heterosexual kid had had the same experience of violence and then dying, that there would have been more media coverage,” Kerr said.
Levesque said he wasn’t surprised by the delay in coverage or the mistakes local media made in reporting on Benedict’s identity. Owasso is a small community, where the LGBTQ+ community does not have much visibility, he said. Local media would in turn reflect that. The coverage issues surrounding Benedict’s death highlight the need for LGBTQ+ publications.
“This justifies our existence. Because if we’re not here to tell our stories, no one can and no one will.” Levesque said. “They look at us in an abstract, academic, we’re-an-issue-not-a-people. If queer media wasn’t here to tell the story, it probably in many cases wouldn’t get told.
“It’s that simple.”
