The death of Oklahoma high schooler who identified as “non-binary” caused an uproar among left-wing activists and media, with many hastening to claim that she had been brutally beaten to death by transphobic students.
Autopsy reports revealed that Nex Benedict died of suicide by a drug overdose.
“From the beginning of this investigation, Owasso Police observed many indications that this death was the result of suicide. However, investigators did not wish to confirm that information without the final results being presented by the Oklahoma Medical Examiner’s Office. The Oklahoma Medical Examiner’s report has now been made public,” said the Owasso Police Department.
In February, Benedict was part of a fight with three girls in her high-school bathroom, and was transported to the hospital with minor injuries.
The day after the fight, Benedict died, and left wing media outlets quickly claimed that she had died of “brain trauma” from injuries sustained during the fight.
Mainstream outlets, such as USA Today alleged that the fight was an unprovoked, transphobic assault against Benedict because she identified as non-binary, going so far as to suggest that the assault was motivated by “anti-trans” tweets made by Chaya Raichik, operator of the Libs of TikTok X account. USA Today has previously blamed Raichik for bomb threats, including bomb threats made against Maine legislators on Friday.
[RELATED: USA Today Blames Libs of TikTok Operator for Bomb Threat Hoax in Maine Capitol…]
Locally, even the Maine media seized on Benedict’s death — and the initial false narrative — to advance left-wing policies rooted in gender ideology.
In a Feb. 27 editorial, the Bangor Daily News admitted that there “is much we still do not know” and said we would have to “wait for more answers about their death.”
However, that didn’t stop them from pouncing on false reporting to blame Republican lawmakers and Republican policies for whatever gender-based bullying “could” be occurring in Maine or elsewhere.
In a news story coincidentally published the same day, the paper interviewed left-wing activists who have lobbied for controversial medical procedures, such as providing sex-change hormones to minors.
“Following the death of a nonbinary high school student in Oklahoma who was bullied and assaulted by their peers, advocates warn the same could happen in Maine,” wrote reporter Kathleen O’Brien.
(The paper has not added an edit or a correction to the story as of Friday.)
The mainstream narrative, however, was proven entirely false when police released the video of an officer speaking to Benedict following the incident, and the autopsy report was published showing that she died by suicide after ingesting Benadryl and Prozac.
The video shows a police officer questioning a conscious, and seemingly healthy, Benedict about the incident.
Other claims advanced by left-wing activists seeking to leverage Benedict’s death to advance their agenda also rapidly fell to pieces once details of the investigation were published, including the claim that Benedict was bullied based on gender.
During the interview, Benedict admits that she started the fight by splashing water on the other girls, who were mocking her for her laugh, not because she identified as non-binary.
“They were talking about us in front of us, and so I went up there, and I poured water on them, and then all three of them came at me,” said Benedict, “They grabbed onto my hair, I grabbed onto them. I threw one of them into a paper towel dispenser, and then they got my legs out from under me, got me on the ground, and started beating the sh*t out of me.”
Benedict’s friends then intervened, joining the fight and pulling the other girls away from her.
Contrary to initial reporting claiming Benedict had been the victim of an unprovoked transphobic beat down, her testimony shows that the fight was far from one-sided, and that it was motivated by her decision to pour water on the other girls, not by their transphobia — or any political policies.
Following the release of the autopsy report, Raichik took to X to criticize the mainstream media for using the tragic death to attack her.
“The Left used this tragedy to attack LoTT and the media lied about this story for weeks, insisting that I was somehow responsible for Nex’s d*ath,” said Raichik through her Libs of TikTok account.
President Joe Biden also weighed in on the incident following the autopsy, claiming that the suuicide was the fault of discriminatory transphobia.
“Non-binary and transgender people are some of the bravest Americans I know. But nobody should have to be brave just to be themselves. In memory of Nex, we must all recommit to our work to end discrimination and address the suicide crisis impacting too many non-binary and transgender children,” said President Biden.
Biden did not mention the devastating effects that transgender surgeries and hormone treatment have on both the mental and physical health of children.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="26624 https://www.themainewire.com/?p=26624">9 Comments
never let the truth get in the way.
More daily lies and division from MSDNC. I’m surprised they are still in business as well as the BDN. Thanks Mainewire.
Like the state run propaganda machine also claimed Bryan Sicknick died from being hit in the head with a fire extinguisher and never corrected the story by telling the truth of his heart attack that actually killed him.
This is par for the course in today’s lapdog media.
No wonder the general public has been so ill informed.
Truth should never get in the way of a good story that advances the agenda. Do you think they care about falsifying a story? The media is more interested in placing thoughts in people’s minds than truth in reporting.
LIBS page should absolutely due for defamation. By the time it’s all over, Raichak could buy a Maine island and retire.
And Matthew Shepard was killed over a drug deal gone bad. The MSM does not care about the truth.
This story is comparable to when Trump was talking about the benefits of hydroxychloroquine in combating covid 19, and a lady in Iowa? spiked her husbands soda with chloroquine, a fishtank cleaner. Her husband died and she said she said she did it because Trump said it was safe…and the entire lamestream media ran with this narrative…until the police found out she wanted to kill her husband all along and used that as her reasoning. The media then dropped that story like a hot potato.
I would have liked to see more details about the autopsy findings. One needs to be super well informed to argue with leftists – and even then it’s almost always a fool’s errand.
oops there it is. Shame. too many OD’s.