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The death of Nex Benedict, a nonbinary teenager in Oklahoma, after a fight in school bathroom earlier this month has led to an outpouring of grief and anger among the LGBTQ community—and fresh attention to the climate of hostility faced by trans students in the state and beyond.
Much remains unclear about the specifics of what happened to Nex, who was reported dead on February 8. On Friday, the Owasso Police Department posted body cam footage of Nex speaking to an officer in a hospital after the fight.
In the video, Nex—dressed in a black t-shirt and cargo pants, their dark hair cut short—tells the officer “I got jumped” and that they didn’t know the three freshman girls who hurt them until that week. “They just decided to up and start messing with you?” the officer asks.
“Yeah, because of the way that we dress,” Nex replied.
According to Nex, the girls had made fun of the way Nex and their friends were laughing. In response, Nex threw water on the girls from a plastic water bottle, Nex told the officer. Then, they say, the girls “came at me.” Nex continues: “They grabbed onto my hair, I grabbed onto them. I threw one them into a paper towel dispenser. Then they got my legs out from under me, got me on the ground, and started beating the s**t out of me. And then my friends tried to jump in and help, and I’m not sure, I blacked out.”
