26/03/2024
Several thousand people, according to some estimates, gathered in the gay neighbourhood of Oklahoma City on Saturday 24th February, to mourn the death of Nex Benedict, a non-binary teenager murdered by violent heterosexual students at their high school. LGBTQIA magazine The Advocate reports that "LBGTQ+ supporters and activists called for action, the event darkened not only by the death of the Owasso teen, but also by recent inflammatory comments from a state government official calling the state’s LBGTQ+ citizens “filth.” Nicole Poindexter, an associate regional campaign director of the state’s Human Rights Campaign, recounted to the crowd how she had lobbied against recent anti-LGBTQ+ bills at the state legislature, which has passed laws that restrict LBGTQ+ language in schools and bar transgender students from using bathrooms that align with their gender identity". OKLAHOMA CITY -- At a candlelight vigil in Oklahoma City on Saturday night, an overflow crowd gathered at a gallery in the 39th Street gay district to mourn the death of Nex Benedict, a teen who died earlier this month following a beating at high school. The supporters gathered against an orange-gold evening, lighting candles and quietly murmuring to one another as the service began. Most of those attending could not fit into the space used for the service, and lined the street outside beneath multi-colored signs signifying the city’s celebrated lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender district “gayborhood.”LBGTQ+ supporters and activists called for action, the event darkened not only by the death of the Owasso teen, but also by recent inflammatory comments from a state government official calling the state’s LBGTQ+ citizens “filth.” Nicole Poindexter, an associate regional campaign director of the state’s Human Rights Campaign, recounted to the crowd how she had lobbied against recent anti-LGBTQ+ bills at the state legislature, which has passed laws that restrict LBGTQ+ language in schools and bar transgender students from using bathrooms that align with their gender identity. “We told them this would happen,” Poindexter said. “We told them that if they continued this rhetoric of hate, this rhetoric of division, that it would result in body bags, and I am devastated to tell you we were right.” James Cooper, a gay representative on the City Council, was under no illusions as to how some politician's vicious language had impacted the violence experienced by Nex and others. “When we have officials at any level of government who refer to lesbian, gay, transgender, or queer people as ‘filth,’ calling them out of their name as a human being, and saying they and their constituents do not want ‘filth’ in our state and that ‘we will fight it,’ we must never be surprised when everyday people take up that word ‘fight’ and fight people in public for just being LBGTQ,” Cooper said. “That language is from a belief system where people have a backward interpretation of their sacred text.” The Advocate notes that crucially, many people of faith were at the vigil, underlining the fact that many religious people are horrified at what is being done by violent heterosexual thugs in their name.
