{"id":24664,"date":"2024-03-09T05:06:56","date_gmt":"2024-03-09T11:06:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=24664"},"modified":"2024-03-09T05:07:05","modified_gmt":"2024-03-09T11:07:05","slug":"after-nex-benedicts-death-lgbtq-youth-group-saw-200-rise-in-crisis-contacts-from-oklahoma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=24664","title":{"rendered":"After Nex Benedict\u2019s death, LGBTQ youth group saw 200% rise in crisis contacts from Oklahoma"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A national LGBTQ youth nonprofit group said crisis calls from Oklahoma more than tripled in the weeks after transgender student Nex Benedict<\/a> died there on Feb. 8. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lance Preston, founder of the Indianapolis-based Rainbow Youth Project<\/a>, a suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization, said the group\u2019s crisis hotline for LGBTQ young people received 1,097 contacts, including calls and online messages, from Oklahoma in February \u2014 an increase of more than 200% from its monthly average of 350 contacts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group received just under 1,000 of those contacts after Feb. 16, when Nex\u2019s death began to receive widespread media attention. Of the 1,097 contacts, 87% reported incidents of bullying in Oklahoma schools. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe high volume of contacts underscores the pressing need for intervention and support services \u2014 support services that are far too often unavailable, especially in rural areas of the country,\u201d Preston said at a news conference Thursday hosted by the Human Rights Campaign, the country\u2019s largest LGBTQ advocacy organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an email following the news conference, Preston said he believes the spike in contacts is partly due to an increase in awareness of the group and its crisis services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nex \u2014 who was transgender and used he and they pronouns<\/a>, according to friends and family \u2014 died a day after a fight at Owasso High School. The Owasso Police Department released a series of videos<\/a> that show the hours following the fight, including body camera video from a police officer\u2019s interview with Nex, in which he described how three students \u201cjumped\u201d him after he threw water on them because they were bullying him and his friend for the way they dressed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Feb. 21, police released preliminary information from an autopsy report that they said shows Nex\u2019s death was not the result of trauma<\/a>. However, days later, a spokesperson for the department clarified that the fight hasn\u2019t been ruled out as having contributed to or caused his death. An official autopsy and cause of death will be released after the toxicology exam, which is still pending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, a month after Nex\u2019s death, his name has become a rallying cry among activists in Oklahoma and the rest of the country, some of whom argue that anti-LGBTQ state laws and school policies contributed to his death<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Preston said the surge in crisis contacts to the Rainbow Youth Project shows that LGBTQ youths in Oklahoma are scared. On Wednesday, members of Westboro Baptist Church, which is known for protesting funerals with signs that say \u201cGod Hates Fags,\u201d among other derogatory slogans, protested outside Nex\u2019s school. Ahead of the protest, the group released a statement on its website that misgendered Nex and said he \u201cstirred up a hornet\u2019s nest, purposefully fighting with other girls at the school, committing criminal acts in the process, and got the trouble\u201d that he \u201cwent looking for.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 24 hours ahead of Westboro\u2019s act, the Rainbow Youth Project received 124 calls from students in Oklahoma specifically noting the upcoming protest, Preston said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey were concerned about the violence that that would bring or would encourage to the community and to the school,\u201d Preston said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ahead of the protest, the Rainbow Youth Project partnered with Parasol Patrol, a group that shields children from protesters with umbrellas, and other local and national advocacy groups to create a counterprotest. Preston said the group drew more than 400 people, while the church\u2019s had\u00a0fewer than 10<\/a>, according to NBC affiliate KJRH of Tulsa.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During Thursday\u2019s news conference, Chasten Glezman Buttigieg, author, advocate and the husband of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, criticized the statement Owasso Public Schools issued before Westboro\u2019s demonstration.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a statement <\/a>to KOKI-TV on Friday, Margaret Coates, the district\u2019s superintendent, said, \u201cOPS is aware that Westboro Baptist Church, an activist organization based in Kansas that routinely engages in disruptive protests, has plans to visit Owasso on Wednesday, March 6.\u201d She added that OPS takes all safety and security matters seriously and that \u201cdistrict leaders are working closely with our law enforcement partners to monitor the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buttigieg noted that the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit legal advocacy organization that tracks extremist groups, has labeled Westboro Baptist Church a hate group. In 1998, the church picketed the funeral of Matthew Shepard<\/a>, a gay 21-year-old University of Wyoming student who died after being brutally beaten and tied to a fence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is not an \u2018activist\u2019 group,\u201d Buttigieg said, adding that the superintendent \u201cwouldn\u2019t speak to that fact and the type of hatred that is invited into a community when people in positions of power allow it to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brock Crawford, a spokesperson for Owasso Public Schools, declined to comment on Buttigieg’s remarks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Education Department has opened an investigation<\/a> into Owasso Public Schools for allegedly failing to address previous complaints of discrimination from students. The investigation was opened following a complaint from the Human Rights Campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crawford confirmed in an email Friday that the district received notice of the investigation and pushed back against the allegations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe district is committed to cooperating with federal officials and believes the complaint submitted by HRC is not supported by the facts and is without merit,\u201d Crawford said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

nbcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A national LGBTQ youth nonprofit group said crisis calls from Oklahoma more than tripled in the weeks after transgender student Nex Benedict died there on Feb. 8.  Lance Preston, founder of the Indianapolis-based Rainbow Youth Project, a suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization, said the group\u2019s crisis hotline for LGBTQ young people received 1,097 contacts, including calls and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":24665,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1154],"tags":[27094,1367,1247,2021,1861,27093,1458,2143],"class_list":["post-24664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-contacts","tag-crisis","tag-death","tag-increase","tag-lgbtq","tag-nex-benedict","tag-oklahoma","tag-youth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24664"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24666,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24664\/revisions\/24666"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}