By Jackson Hare, Campus News Editor

Up until now, I had been avoiding reading into the details of the beating and subsequent death of Nex Benedict. I knew that I would find myself deeply upset, angry and nihilistic. And I am.

Even so, I underestimated how violently ill I would feel reading about a detective asking a judge to look for evidence of blood in the school bathroom where Benedict was beaten by three girls the same age as them; how I learned from their obituary that they liked to read and play Minecraft; how their friends reported that Nex had been bullied for being non-binary for well over a year; and hearing Nex tell the police officer they didn’t even know the girls’ names.

All those things considered, I am most hung up on the fact that three young girls did this. Yes, the cause of Nex’s death has yet to be officially determined, but there is no doubt in my mind that, at the very least, they died due to complications that arose from these young girls beating them. In my mind, these girls are murderers. They killed their classmate because they were non-binary.

They’re not the only ones to blame. I am bewildered and disturbed by the kind of dystopian nightmare we live in that these young girls were spurred to commit such violence.

 My rage comes from the fact that their actions were misguided by lies and dog whistles from right-wing politicians.

It is not these girls’ fault. They were convinced. 

Oklahoma state superintendent Ryan Walters, who has worked to prevent students from changing their gender in school records and told the New York Times after Nex’s death that he doesn’t believe transgender or non-binary people exist. He indirectly told those girls that LGBTQ+ people do not deserve respect.

Conservative social media personality behind “Libs of TikTok” Chaya Raichik, who Walters appointed to a library review committee and who engages in constant anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric calling the LGBTQ+ community a “cult” and “groomers,” told these girls that LGBTQ+ people are dangerous.

The Republican dominated Oklahoma state legislature, which has passed laws prohibiting transgender students from using the restroom that aligns best with their gender identity and laws prohibiting them from receiving gender-affirming healthcare, told those three girls that LGBTQ+ people are not human.

These people fostered the conditions necessary to turn these three young girls into murderers and weapons of the right-wing. And somehow, we think this is an isolated incident.

I hate to inform you that this rhetoric and its impact are incredibly pervasive.

When I was a senior in high school, I started the LGBTQ+ Alliance at my school, and I knew that there would be resistance. I knew I would be called names, treated as less human, mischaracterized and demonized by poorly educated moms and I could handle that.

However, when at a school board meeting I listened to a girl who I had met in kindergarten and had been friends with and grown up with tell the school board she didn’t attend our graduation ceremony because she felt me starting this club was rubbing my sexuality in her face, my heart shattered.

The girl I laughed with in the cafeteria during lunch time and took AP Spanish with suddenly betrayed me. She told me she was disgusted by me, joining the room full of people who already thought of me as a sexual predator.

It was then I felt alone. I felt unsafe.

Today, I think to myself, scoffing at my naivety, “Who do you think taught her that? Who made her feel that way?” Probably her mother who corroborated her story asking the school board to pity her daughter missing her graduation as if I didn’t deserve to be there, too.

I wish I could say coming to Xavier eliminated this, but the anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-trans rhetoric exists here, too.

For those of you who use the men’s restrooms in Gallagher Student Center, have you noticed those black velcro strips that are stuck in the corner on the sink counter?

There used to be baskets with free period products there. What do you think happened to those products, and why do you think they aren’t in the men’s bathrooms any longer?

It is because they kept getting defaced and thrown in the trash; free products that yes, maybe a majority of men don’t use, but a transgender student might need. Yet, people on our campus went out of their way to throw them out.

I’ll say it again: I don’t blame them. I am disgusted and disappointed that rather than using the bathroom, washing their hands and leaving, people felt so spurred to dump free period products in the trash.

Yet, this is nothing less than a sign that Xavier too is affected by the violent anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric echoing throughout the country, and we need to do a better job at making sure everyone knows that is unacceptable.