Reposted from My Substack.
CNN.
“The district’s lack of adequate policies and training significantly harmed Nigel and placed him at unreasonable risk of harm,” the suit stated. “And, now, Nigel is gone.”
“The district’s lack of adequate policies and training significantly harmed Nigel and placed him at unreasonable risk of harm,” the suit stated. “And, now, Nigel is gone.”
It’s a worry for many that is growing: Now advancing throughout the Alabama legislature are a series of bills that would slowly chip away the rights of the LGBTQ community, including by limiting LGBTQ discussions in classrooms.
Shelby ultimately reached an $840,000 settlement with the board and administrator, under which the board agreed to update policies on anti-bullying and harassment toward the LGBTQ community as well as teaching faculty and students ways to prevent bullying and harassment towards LGBTQ people. The board and administrator denied violating any legal duty, rights or “federal, state, or municipal constitution, law, order or regulation.”
Sadly, this is not an isolated story or an isolated incident. Far from it. This has been a problem going back for decades.
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This was broadcast on CNN 13 years ago.
Kid: I came out of the closet as gay in 8th grade. And ever since I’ve been bullied. I was, for lack of a better word - and still am - the “school faggot”
Anderson Cooper: People call you that? They use the F-word?
Kid: Every day.
Anderson: Every single day?
Kid: Every - give or take — 10, 12 times a day. There was a point where a kid had a knife on school premises and said “I’m gonna kill him. I want that faggot dead.” And I had to transfer schools.
Anderson: You’ve been bullied as well?
Girl: I’ve been verbally abused because of my religion. I’m a Muslim girl and it’s really hard living in a small town where everyone seems to an Italian Catholic or Christian. And when you say “Muslim” you see their faces drop. It’s like no one knows what that is or their scared of it. And it’s been hard, like people won’t talk to me anymore once they find out.
This has been going on for a long, long time. Innocent kids are bullied to the point of self-destruction. Of course, kids can be cruel. Of course, kids are also sensitive and vulnerable, particularly to teasing, but when that teasing becomes harassment, it leads a kid into depression and self-loathing. Cutting themselves. Killing themselves. That should be the point where we step back and say “Enough.”
And those that have inflicted this harm, should be held accountable.
This video from The Doctors is from 6 years ago.
Rosalie at age 13, took her own life after being bullied for her looks and crooked teeth. A viral video was made: “Here are the ugly girls, and look at the pretty girls.” Her father says “we knew it was a big deal to her because she became a different person.” Her mom states “She chopped off all her hair, she began to eat less, to stay in her room. This is when we found out she was cutting herself.”
Then her mother found her hanging from the closet.
This video from ABC’s 20/20 featuring Chris Cuomo is from 13 years ago.
This report tells the story of Tyler Long who had spectrum syndrome. Following rules tends to be a feature of the syndrome so when kids would talk during class he would remind them “that’s against the rules.” This made him a target. They would take his things, spit in food, call him “gay.”
His parents complained to the school, but nothing happened. “Boys will be boys, what do you want me do? I’ve done all I can.” This went on for years, and Tyler began to change. “He was like a hollow person."
Cuomo Voice over: On October 17th, two months into his junior year, Tyler Long changed out of his pajamas into his favorite t-shirt and jeans, strapped a belt around his neck and hanged himself from the top shelf of his bedroom closet.
This report also goes over the case of 18-year-old Tyler Clemente who was bullied after he was filmed have sex with another man. As a college freshman, he jumped off a bridge in New Jersey and died.
It also recounts the story of 15-year-old Pheobe Prince who killed herself supposedly after being called an “Irish Slut” constantly at school. A group of Massachusets teens were subsequently tried on harassment charges.
Sean Mulveyhill and Kayla Narey, both 18, pled guilty to harassment charges. The court sentenced them each to a one-year probation, as well as 100 hours of community service.
The bullying started in the fall of 2009. Mulveyhill and Narey were in a relationship before Prince, an Irish immigrant, moved into the area, reports The Republican. Mulveyhill began a relationship with Prince, but when Prince found out he was dating Narey, she broke off the relationship and even apologized to Narey.
Rumors circulated around Christmas 2009 that Prince was dating another student, Austin Renaud, who already had a girlfriend. Narey began to bully Prince, and encouraged other students to do the same.
Prince hung herself with a scarf in her home on January 14, 2009. The same day, she had been called names, taunted, and had a soda can thrown at her while she was walking home from school, according to The Republican.
And this is an English documentary about bullying. “Too scared for School.”
So this is an international problem. But in America, we do have one difference.
Guns.
Though gun violence conversations tend to focus on homicides, nearly six out of every 10 gun deaths in the U.S. are suicides. That’s an average of 68 deaths a day.1 These deaths can be prevented. Policies and practices that focus on disrupting access to firearms in times of crisis have been proven to reduce firearm suicides.
Most people who attempt suicide do not die—unless they use a gun. Across all suicide attempts without a gun, 4% result in death. But when a gun is involved, that figure skyrockets to 90%.2 That second chance matters: the vast majority of people who survive a suicide attempt do not go on to die from a later attempt.3 The research shows that the difference between living to see a better day or dying by suicide is often determined by the presence of a gun. Given the unique lethality of firearms as a means of suicide, addressing gun suicide is an essential element of any strategy to reduce gun violence in this country.
[…]
When a person is in crisis and considering harming themselves or others, family members and law enforcement are often the first people to see the warning signs. Extreme Risk laws, sometimes referred to as “Red Flag” laws, allow loved ones or law enforcement to intervene by petitioning a court for an order to temporarily prevent someone in crisis from accessing guns.
Extreme Risk Laws Save Lives Report
In 2023, 50,000 people died by suicide which was the highest ever.
In 2021 it was 48,1830.
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The age-adjusted suicide rate in 2021 was 14.04 per 100,000 individuals.
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In 2021, men died by suicide 3.90x more than women.
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On average, there are 132 suicides per day.
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White males accounted for 69.68% of suicide deaths in 2021.
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In 2021, firearms accounted for 54.64% of all suicide deaths.
In 2021, firearms were the most common method of death by suicide, accounting for a little more than half (54.64%) of all suicide deaths. The next most common methods were suffocation (including hangings) at 25.80% and poisoning (including drug overdose) at 11.56%.
And, as of 2022, the gun suicide rate for black kids exceeded white kids.
Newly released provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that gun death rates in 2022 remained near highs not seen since the mid-90s and, in addition, rates have not returned to pre-pandemic levels.
Guns remained the leading cause of death for children and teens in 2022. The rate of gun deaths among this group climbed 87% in the last decade (2013-2022). The data also showed gun violence continuing to have a disproportionate impact on Black children and teens, who have a gun homicide rate 20 times higher than their white counterparts. Additionally, the nation’s overall gun suicide rate increased 1.6%, reaching an all-time high, and for the first time, the gun suicide rate among Black teens surpassed the rate among white teens.
For perspective, the Gun Violence Archive recorded 20,441 homicides or unintentional gun deaths in 2022.
That year they recorded 27,038 Gun Suicides.
Obviously, someone can kill themselves without a gun, but if they use another method their chance of success diminishes greatly. And if they survive, they’re far less likely to try again. Robust Red-Flag laws that allow not just police and family but also a therapist or psychiatrist to remove guns for those suffering from depression and suicidal thoughts could reduce that 27k number drastically. If these deaths were cut in half, saving 13,500 people, the total number of suicides overall would be cut by 25%.
It could also be argued that a great number of the mass shootings that we are seeing increasingly are actually very elaborate suicides, or in some cases - suicide by cop.
I first reported on this connection back in 2019, as part of trying to explain why a suicide prevention tool — “red flag laws” that enable family members and law enforcement to determine that a person is a threat to themselves or others and temporarily remove guns from their home — was being proposed as a way to prevent mass shootings.
Today, 19 states have enacted red flag laws and they’ve had mixed results in violence prevention. But the connections between suicidality and mass shootings have just gotten stronger. “Many of these mass shootings are angry suicides,” James Densley, professor of criminal justice at Minnesota’s Metropolitan State University, told me four years ago. And now there’s even more evidence to suggest that’s true.
It isn’t news that a lot of mass shooters suffer from suicidal ideation, said James Lankford, a professor of criminology at the University of Alabama. But it wasn’t until he published a 2021 study comparing mass shooters to other demographic groups that he truly realized just how much more mass shooters had in common with people who die by suicide than they did with other kinds of homicide offenders.
Generally speaking, the rate of LGBTQ youth who contemplate suicide is quite high.
LGBTQ+ young people are not inherently prone to suicide risk because of their sexual orientation or gender identity but rather placed at higher risk because of how they are mistreated and stigmatized in society.
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Suicide is the second leading cause of death among young people aged 10 to 14, and the third leading cause of death among 15-24 year olds (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2022). Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ+) young people are at significantly increased risk.
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LGBTQ+ young people are more than four times as likely to attempt suicide than their peers (Johns et al., 2019; Johns et al., 2020).
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The Trevor Project estimates that more than 1.8 million LGBTQ+ young people (ages 13-24) seriously consider suicide each year in the U.S. — and at least one attempts suicide every 45 seconds.
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The Trevor Project’s 2023 U.S. National Survey on the Mental Health of LGBTQ Young People found that 41% of LGBTQ+ young people seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year, including roughly half of transgender and nonbinary youth.
Why on Earth would anybody want to make those stats even worse?
All of this brings me to the recent case of Nex Benedict who was pronounced to have committed suicide in Oklahoma after being repeatedly bullied for being non-binary.
Could that be considered a case of murder by bullying?
This case is somewhat unique in that the bullying they endured was not something spontaneous that occurred in her school, it was specifically triggered by posts attacking LGBTQ teachers and students at that exact school by Libs of TikTok founder Chaya Raichik.
Raichik, despite having no experience in education, and having no children of her own, has been a cause celebre among the Right wing. Her posts were used by Florida’s Ron Desantis in the crafting of that state’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill. And when she criticizes the students or teachers at a specific school - it does cause action.
[…]
Most notably, when she posts about schools, b-mb threats against those schools quickly follow. We already talked about the incident when she shared a post about a school librarian in Tulsa and, shortly afterward, several schools in the district received repeated b-mb threats. That’s just the beginning.
In March 2023, she targeted Northwest Junior High in Iowa. The school then received multiple b-mb threats, forcing it to evacuate students two days in a row. In August 2023, she targeted Ellen Ochoa Elementary School. Afterwards, the school received multiple b-mb threats. In November 2023, she targeted Witchcraft Heights Elementary School (which, first of all, iconic name) and the school received three b-mb threats, forcing students to evacuate. Her most active month so far has been in September 2023. That month, she targeted the Anoka-Hennepin School District here in Minnesota. The next day, the school received a b-mb threat. She then targeted Red Oak School which then received multiple b-mb threats.
[…]
Over and over and OVER again, this woman who claims to be so concerned for the well-being of our nation’s children has targeted the schools where they live and learn, disrupting their learning environment but also putting them very literally in harm’s way. And given the reality in this country where children are massacred in their schools regularly, these threats are not idle, and they are never taken lightly, not by the school districts nor by the children that are actively terrorized when they are made to feel unsafe in the place they thought was supposed to be safe. The frequency with which this happens paints a very clear pattern. When she targets a school district, b-mb threats follow.
As noted by Media Matters.
LoTT targeted an Owasso Public Schools teacher; the teacher reported death threats and resigned.
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In April 2022, LoTT reposted a video of Owasso, Oklahoma, public school teacher Tyler Wrynn telling students: “If your parents don’t accept you for who you are, fuck them.” The same day the post went viral, Wrynn resigned amid a flurry of harassment and death threats directed at him. In February 2024, Nex Benedict, a trans student who had “greatly admired” Wrynn, was beaten in a school bathroom by a group of older students and died the following day. Local LGBTQ advocacy groups called Benedict's death a “hate crime” and blamed LoTT and state lawmakers for promoting an atmosphere of bigotry and intolerance toward trans students. [Fox News 23, 4/14/22; OCPA, 4/29/22; Washington Post, 4/19/22; The Oklahoman, 2/20/24]
The bathroom fight occurred because Nex encountered some girls they didn’t know in the girl’s bathroom, which she was required to use due to an Oklahoma Law limiting kids to use the bathroom that matched their birth certificate.
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt on Wednesday signed into law a bill that requires students at public schools and public charter schools to use restrooms and locker rooms that match the sex listed on their birth certificates.
The law specifically applies to students in pre-K through 12th grade at public and public charter schools in the state. Transgender students who decline to use the restroom required under the measure would have to use “a single-occupancy restroom or changing room” provided by the school.
This law is what fostered the confrontation. However, the Medical examiner’s report indicates that Nex did not die due to injuries sustained in the fight, but instead died due to an overdose of Benedryl and Prozac.
The full toxicology report states the concentrations of each drug found in Benedict's system: between 1.2 and 1.9 mcg/mL fluoxetine and between 15 and 25 mcg/mL of diphenhydramine. If used appropriately, a therapeutic level of fluoxetine would not exceed 0.5 mcg/mL.
Published research indicates an excess of 8 mcg/mL of diphenhydramine can be fatal. The average blood concentration in a fatal diphenhydramine overdose may be as high as 15 mcg/mL. Fluoxetine can be dangerous at high blood concentrations, especially in combination with diphenhydramine, by inducing a potentially fatal effect known as serotonin syndrome.
This has been ruled a “suicide.” A suicide that was a long history of bullying which Nex had endured at that school.
Here’s a video from the school after Benedict’s death and man is it something. (If you only watch one video from the diary — definitely — watch this one.)
Whether it was the fight or the overdose — IMO — doesn’t much matter. The school had received multiple complaints from multiple parents about the bullying taking place and they had done nothing. Taking no action — especially after firing a Gay Teacher — is tantamount to giving the bullies a GREEN LIGHT to do whatever they wanted. And it also told all those being bullied that these No. Help. coming from official sources.
Is it any shock that Nex died? How many other kids are under threat?
But is there any legal recourse for this? Could there be a wrong death or negligence suit filed?
Well, although there are Federal Laws against Harassment - they are essentially focused on people who are witnesses or victims in Federal court. This would not apply in Benedict’s case.
There are some protections available under Oklahoma Law.
A. No person shall maliciously and with the specific intent to intimidate or harass another person because of that person's race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin or disability:
1. Assault or batter another person;
2. Damage, destroy, vandalize or deface any real or personal property of another person; or
3. Threaten, by word or act, to do any act prohibited by paragraph 1 or 2 of this subsection if there is reasonable cause to believe that such act will occur.
B. No person shall maliciously and with specific intent to incite or produce, and which is likely to incite or produce, imminent violence, which violence would be directed against another person because of that person's race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin or disability, make or transmit, cause or allow to be transmitted, any telephonic, computerized, or electronic message.
C. No person shall maliciously and with specific intent to incite or produce, and which is likely to incite or produce, imminent violence, which violence would be directed against another person because of that person's race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin or disability, broadcast, publish, or distribute, cause or allow to be broadcast, published or distributed, any message or material.
You know what isn’t included in all that? Gender. Or Sexual orientation. You can’t harass or intimidate someone based on religion or race, but apparently, you can based on gender or sexual orientation. Ain’t that special?
Clearly, Oklahoma is not very LGBTQ-friendly.
However, in Oklahoma, there is also this statute:
A. It shall be unlawful for a person who, by means of a telecommunication or other electronic communication device, willfully either:
1. Makes any comment, request, suggestion, or proposal which is obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, or indecent;
2. Makes a telecommunication or other electronic communication including text, sound or images with intent to terrify, intimidate or harass, or threaten to inflict injury or physical harm to any person or property of that person;
3. Makes a telecommunication or other electronic communication, whether or not conversation ensues, with intent to put the party called in fear of physical harm or death;
4. Makes a telecommunication or other electronic communication, including text, sound or images whether or not conversation ensues, without disclosing the identity of the person making the call or communication and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person at the called number;
5. Knowingly permits any telecommunication or other electronic communication under the control of the person to be used for any purpose prohibited by this section; and
6. In conspiracy or concerted action with other persons, makes repeated calls or electronic communications or simultaneous calls or electronic communications solely to harass any person at the called number(s).
This rule isn’t limited to race or national origin, but it is limited to “electronic communications” which would include phones, but also, potentially, tweets. This would clearly include Cyberbullying.
This would cover those who phoned in bomb threats to the school, and it would also include Raichik who had targeted that specific school in her tweets. And if Nex Benedict has evidence of electronic harassment on their phone - that could be legally actionable under Oklahoma state law.
In this context, Raichik could be considered to be a radicalizer inspiring others to engage in acts of violence and terrorism. Raichik specifically forced one of Benedict’s protectors out of the school leaving them even more vulnerable. This would have also emboldened those who felt entitled to bully a vulnerable non-binary person.
There may be a window of opportunity here to file a lawsuit against the school, those who threatened Benedick’s teacher and Raichik who inspired and enabled all this. But that would only be a small first step. This issue is obviously far larger than just Raichik and clearly there needs to be some changes to state and national laws.
We think of suicide as being something we can’t do anything about - but we can. Sometimes it’s purely an issue with that particular person, but do we really want others piling on and making someone’s emotional issue that much worse? It may depend on the State as shown in the prosecution of harassment in Massachusetts above, but we can make people - even kids - think twice before they believe they have carte blanche to treat someone else like shit. We can hold them responsible for the shitty things they do and the shitty things they say if that leads to someone harming themselves in dispair. And, like in the Ethan Crumbley case, it may be possible to hold their parents accountable too — who raises a vicious hateful monster like that?
We need a revolution in mental health in the country, and we need a national anti-bullying and anti-harassment statute that directly addresses this problem. Even though they may only be kids, they need to be held accountable when their actions lead to the harm of others, especially within this new age of social media where a viral video can be so quickly and easily shared leading to massive humiliation, and particularly where things can easily cross state lines.
And we need a law against Stochastic Terrorism.
Tens of thousands of lives are literally at stake.
If you or someone you know is in crisis, please call or text 988, or visit 988lifeline.org/chat to chat with a counselor from the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, previously known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline provides 24/7, free, and confidential support to people in suicidal crisis or emotional distress anywhere in the US.
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