Community Candlelight Vigil for Nex Benedict held in Providence
"I am so sick of replacing joy with grief because grief is overwhelming and numbing and it makes me feel helpless and incapable and it feels like an impossible ladder to climb..."
On Sunday evening, 200 people gathered in Providence’s Dexter Park for a vigil to remember Nex Benedict, a 16-year-old non-binary student who died after an incident at Owasso High School in Owasso, Oklahoma on February 7, 2024.
Luca (organizer): Next was an indigenous non-binary teen who was killed in part because of the overlapping effects of settler colonialism, state violence, and anti-trans violence that led to the death of this person as it has led to the deaths of many other people. People who are trans, people who are queer, trans youth, and people from indigenous communities - we would like to especially honor your voices in this space. We want this to be a space for the community to come together. Regardless of your identity, regardless of whether or not you are queer or trans, regardless of your indigeneity or non-indigeneity, we would like you to come together and talk to each other -if you have space for that within yourself. If you want to be here to grieve collectively, but in silence, we honor that as well.
Please take from this space what you need to take from this space.
I want to remind everybody that what happened to Nex is not an isolated event. It's not just an event that happened in Oklahoma. The transphobic bias and settler colonialist violence that led to this person's life being snuffed out is not just in Oklahoma. We are at risk in Rhode Island as well. Over the past year, we've seen school boards being [infected] with right-wing bias from community members and outside groups such as Moms for Liberty. We've seen hatred in North Smithfield. We've seen hatred in Westerly. We've seen hatred happening even in Barrington.
Many people in these towns are trying to counter transphobia in the schools, but many people are perpetuating it. This cannot stand within our state. I want to remind us all that we think that Rhode Island is a safe state, but Rhode Island is not a safe state currently for trans youth. In addition to these attacks at the local level and school boards, we have no sanctuary legislation, we have no health shield legislation. There are currently health shield laws in process in the House and Senate. A healthcare shield law will protect trans children from other states who are effectively refugees seeking healthcare in Rhode Island. I would urge all of you to contact your state representatives and your state senators and urge them to vote yes on that legislation.
Day Lee: Like many of you, I am a member of the trans community. I've gone through a couple of names at this point. All of them have had deep meaning to me personally and involve a lot of research to come up with. Day Lee is meant to reference my grandmother whose name was Daisy. There was a speaker at the vigil for Nex in Boston yesterday who introduced herself as Anna Phylaxis. The crowd laughed there and I couldn't help but think Nex's name is very similar. There's a backstory to that name that many of us can't begin to know or assume, but I like to think that the backstory is that it sounds like eggs benedict.
I bet when Nex was alive they would laugh about how their name sounds like eggs benedict and make jokes out of the name and bond with family and friends. I can't help but share this thought because my first thought in hearing Nex's name was how many innocent moments they probably had with their friends and family about things like this.
And yet, those who killed Nex - from the people who assaulted Nex to school administrators who refused to get help for Nex, to the legislators who provoked Nex's murder - could not enjoy the bit. They decided to steal that from Nex, from Nex's loved ones, from Nex's tribe, from the trans/indigenous communities, and the world.
They made an active decision to beat that joy out of our community and I am so sick of replacing that joy with grief because grief is overwhelming and numbing and it makes me feel helpless and incapable and it feels like it's impossible ladder to climb to just make the world right again. I have been feeling all of that so much lately.
I am choosing to replace my joy with unbridled rage. I feel rage towards the other students who beat Nex to death in the bathroom. I feel rage towards the school administration for ignoring Nex's pleas to call an ambulance and who wanted to send Nex back to class.
I feel rage towards Chaya Raichik, who runs the Libs of TikTok account and has used her platform to target this school district before Nex was murdered - spreading the ideology that killed this child. I feel raged towards Ryan Walters, the Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction who responded to Nex's murder by making public statements about how there are only two genders - as if a child didn't die under his care. Conservative platforms and media faces have spent so much hot air trying to tell us that there are only two genders, [and that] your chromosomes define what you are. They call us mentally ill and mutilated.
I do not give a damn. If a mentally ill mutilated child was murdered at school, I would not waste my time discussing the validity of whatever I perceive to be a mental illness or mutilation. I would demand to hold the responsible parties accountable. Conservatives are obsessed with telling us over and over again what we are and are not. If they believed what they were saying about us, their actions would match their words. They claim to care about the safety of children who are being welcomed into our community, but they allow those same children to be murdered in their schools.
They claim to care about getting tricked into sleeping with us. And yet 66% of trans people have faced sexual violence according to the Office of Victims of Crime. They claim to care about our bodies and health in transition and yet they strip away our access to healthcare and housing. They claim that there are only two genders and gender is just your chromosomes. In that case, gender isn't about pronouns and you can call Nex they/them and you can call the goddamed ambulance when they need it.
Despite my unbridled rage at the system that let Nex down, I want something good to come out of this tonight. First, I want y'all to leave the space more tied to your community than you were before. This is the loneliest time in history. I feel it and I know y'all feel it too. It is so difficult to see all the terrible news on our phones every day and night about the horrible bills passed in every state - including ours - limiting our bodily autonomy and right to transition; seeing the actions of the state and country cutting back on the sovereign lands of indigenous people and the rights of indigenous people to stay together in our families, in their families; and seeing the horrific violence across the world - and still be expected to go to work and school. I can't help but feel as if nothing will change without us spending this time to build community.
I want people to leave this place with one more friend than they had before and one more ally than they had before. If you are not a member of the trans community, I want you to become more connected to the trans community today. If you are not a member of the Indigenous community, I want you to become more connected to the Indigenous community today. I want you to reach out to the local tribes - the Narragansett tribe and the Wampanoag tribe if you live further east. I want you to learn more about that tribe and learn more about how you can help with the specific issues that they face. And I want you to talk to each other right now and use the space to leave here more connected to your community and more empowered.
Melody: I'm a trans woman. I feel so much rage and pain for Nex's murder. For me, seeing violence happen to my trans siblings is almost a constant occurrence.
I grew up in Texas and one of the things that makes me most angry is how repression in Texas and Oklahoma and everywhere in the US - it's not just limited to conservative states - is how it robs us of our ability to see ourselves. I will never get the years back that I spent in that world. I'll never get to be a teenage girl or wear a dress to prom and yet I still feel lucky because I wasn't murdered.
I'm so angry and in so much pain. It feels like I have to scream but I don't have a mouth.
I want revenge. And even saying that feels so scary to me. I've been taught for so long that my anger makes me more of a target but it's righteous. I don't know what justice for Nex looks like. I don't know what justice for me or any of my trans family looks like and the ways that my mind leaps to revenge are ways that would get me put in a men's prison. So I content myself with imagining that loving myself viciously - evenly bitterly and spitefully - each day - is the best revenge I can get.
I view every day that I wake up alive and caring for myself as a day that the entire system of racial colonial capitalism that murdered Nex wants me dead too and wants indigenous people dead and wants everyone who doesn't submit to it dead - I view every day that I wake up alive and in love with myself as the day that I win and that the murder machine loses.
I think that's all I have to say. I hope people can find some love and connection to each other tonight. I truly believe that's the best weapon we have. Perhaps the only weapon. I love each one of you.
Corey: I'm a proud trans woman and I'm a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation. We are here today to mourn the loss of Nex Benedict and to talk about what it means to fight for trans youth and all queer and trans people.
We know that the attack that happened against Nex was not an isolated incident. This is the direct result of a right-wing push to ban trans and gender nonconforming people from the public and force us to back into the closet. Last year, across this country, we saw over 500 anti-trans bills introduced. This year is already on track to match that. They don't want to just ban trans healthcare for youth. They also want to ban trans healthcare for adults. But they won't stop at healthcare. They've openly stated that they're coming for our right to change our birth certificates and IDs, for LGBT marriage, and abortion access. The right-wing creates conditions for this discrimination and violence using all their media - like Fox News - to ensure that people are too busy fighting each other to see that the wealthy right wing is the enemy of us all.
For instance, anti-trans legislation is often framed as necessary to protect women, but we know that's bullshit. LGBT people are four times as likely to be the victim of violent crime than non-LGBT people and suffer higher levels of poverty overall. LGBT youth of color face a higher risk of homelessness and incarceration. If they wanted to introduce legislation that protected women they would guarantee free abortion access on demand. They would guarantee free childcare. They would guarantee access to higher education and they would guarantee equal pay for all. These rights would equally benefit women and trans people. There are no women's rights separate from trans rights.
We should be fighting together, not against one another. Unfortunately, we've seen that politicians do not protect us. Democrats like to position themselves as allies of the LGBT+ plus community, but what have they done? Biden promised to pass the Equality Act in the first 100 days of office and instead, he let the Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade - the one thing Democrats vowed they would always protect.
Now Biden's using reproductive rights as a bargaining chip to get people to vote for him in the upcoming election. Our rights are not bargaining chips. Our rights are not up for debate.
Ultimately, liberation for trans people will not be given by a state that only cares about profit. Our government tries to divide queer and trans people from women and divide us all from men because it makes us easier to control. But the ruling class won't protect us.
Look around you. Look at all the millions of people across this country and the world who are grieving Nex's death. Together we are more than capable of protecting ourselves. We are capable of uplifting trans lives, trans needs, and freedom of gender expression for all people. The United States government, as it is, will not hand us our liberation. The people fighting together will win our liberation. Because any rights we might win can be eroded and taken away under capitalism, we must fight to change the entire system to one that is for the people and by the people. What we need is a system that guarantees basic rights for all people - a movement of the working class for the working class, not the rich. A system that puts exploited and oppressed people in charge that will defend the needs of the many and not the few.
As we mourn Nex and too many trans lives lost every year we must commit ourselves not only to fighting against transphobic violence, but we must commit to tearing down capitalism and building a new system in its place.
E: I'm here tonight as a parent and I'm here tonight as a birth and a death doula and I'm here tonight as someone who identifies as trans non-binary. It's always sacred when we mark the time. This is a time of death.
I think about how trans people and trans youth, even in our times of death, don't always get to be remembered as our truest selves, even by the people who love us. In our ritual and our gathering and the marking of time we still live in a world where that may be misunderstood. So it's beautiful and important that we're together - naming Nex for who they are and who they were.
I appreciate so deeply that the speakers who have gone before me tonight have brought the naming of truth about the politics of what we must do with our grief. I'm going to read a poem because we need both. We need to mark what death is and what death does. This is a poem about death and dying and it's a poem about the land and it's by Mary Oliver.
Look, the trees are turning their own bodies into pillars of light, are giving off the rich fragrance of cinnamon and fulfillment, the long tapers of cattails are bursting and floating away over the blue shoulders of the ponds, and every pond, no matter what its name is, is nameless now.
Every year everything I have ever learned in my lifetime leads back to this: the fires and the black river of loss whose other side is salvation, whose meaning none of us will ever know.
To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.
Haley Peters: I am a queer and trans citizen of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe. Hearing of Nex's death - their murder - was so impactful. Growing up, there was not a lot of reference. There aren't a lot of two-spirit, trans, queer, or indigenous elders that I had the opportunity to meet, to know about. [I had] no one to talk to.
Those two threads, those two identifiers in one person are so unique and so special. Their existence is incredibly sacred and beautiful. Nex deserved to become a trans elder. The outrage I feel for the school system, the state legislature, the country - is unbelievable. Indigenous youth, trans youth, and indigenous trans youth deserve so much better.
Maeve: People have been talking about rage and joy. All of us are holding a piece of fire. Life is like fire. You feed it, you give it air and it breathes; if it's given room, it grows; and it is so easy to snuff out.
Like many, I've been a victim of school violence. I'm alive in the world despite other people's best efforts.
You hold this fire, it is like life. If you protect it and nourish it, it will grow. If you make the effort to snuff it out, it will go away. But together, if you protect it, if you protect each other, it grows and it flourishes.
Fire is like rage. It is like joy. It can be used to destroy or create. It cooks our food, it melds our metals. It is a tool. Life is also a tool. You do what you want with your life. To see something snuffed out at a young age is a terrible thing. But we're coming together to guard our flames, to remember this flame, and to pick up and build a community within ourselves instead of allowing others to tear us down.
That flame is something that other people want to remove from the world. It is not just your responsibility but the responsibility of the communities you are in to help that flame flourish.
Harper: I love being trans. Also, I feel scared all the time. These are very strong emotions that people have been talking about. [I also feel] flat [and] numb.
But it's wonderful to hang out with other trans people. That makes me feel more safe.
I have something to say that has been helping me. It's not for everybody maybe, but there's a group of trans queer people and women taking a jujitsu self-defense class.
Just going to the grocery store today, I almost didn't notice how much work it is to always be looking and seeing what people are seeing. I'm not doing a good job of expressing myself, but what I'm trying to say is that I imagine other people have this constant tension inside, which I've been calling fear, which is maybe also other feelings. One thing that has been helping me has been the self-defense class. It makes me feel [less] scared.
Somebody was just saying how there are very few trans elders in their community. I also don't know any trans parents. I'm 34 years old and want to have a kid and I don't know any other trans moms. I don't know if it's appropriate, but I'd love to meet other trans parents or people who are thinking about parenting.
Jade: I am here to mourn Nex's murder and honor their life. I also have a poem to share. It's about deserving more than just the minimal acknowledgment of our existence and deserving to thrive and the beauty of our queerness and our transness. The poem is called Cup of Tea.
I don't care if you approve it all, it doesn't mean that much to me. I don't mind if I'm not at all your fucking cup of tea, but you still stare and act appalled and refuse to let me be.
I hope you know that I am more than you will ever get to see. I am trying to exist in beautiful ways that help me feel so free. Why must you try and push me down and bring me to my knees?
I refuse to plead for your conditional acceptance. I'd rather be in loving queer effervescence. I deserve much more than your begrudging acquiescence. I deserve to feel wholehearted love and acceptance.
Emily: I am here with you all mourning Nex. I'm here as an artist and educator who, for the past week - it's a very heavy mixture of feelings going back to work tomorrow with the thought of Nex, the thought of their age mates having to mourn such a tremendous loss of classmate, someone so early in their youth, someone who had too much to even start thinking about to offer and was doing all this to live in their truth and trusting everyone with their safety, their wellbeing, letting us into their life.
Jade: There's a huge honor that you have in education where you have someone trusting you with their child, their future, their present, everything that they come into this space with you. I want to say thank you to Nex. Thank you to you all for just - despite how deep this heartbreak is and how there are not enough words in the face of loss and grief and pain and anguish and anger and just unending righteous fury and confusion and never knowing who you can turn to, who you can trust with yourself, with your love, with your light. And then you look around here and you see everyone in all different walks of life, all different ages, just persevering and making time to carry Nex. Just keep carrying on.
Thank you to everyone who makes this possible and everyone who trusts us with their kids. Tomorrow, the next day, next week, we'll have Nex in those hallways where school can be this safe haven away from whatever violence you're enduring at home, in the streets, or wherever you go before and after.
Then, once you're in school - this is a travesty beyond what I can say without breaking down - I can't even say...
Physically I am here with you all and Nex is going to be with me tomorrow. It's too many people we keep losing and we just have to keep going. I don't know how. Thank you to everyone who's going to come into the classroom with me and see that someone is looking out for them. Thank you to all the parents who are trusting all of us, whether we're in a school space, around your families, or even here right now. Thank you for making it possible that there's still love out there and there are still people with whom you can share camaraderie.
We have to exist no matter what. Everyone who's like Nex has to see that you can still have friends, you can still have loved ones, you can still grow up, be a trans parent, you can still grow up and make it possible for other kids, other people in their youth still figuring things out that you're possible you can exist.
Just as much as I have so much love for everyone here, this is too much to bear sometimes. So thank you for being there for us to lean on when we don't know what to do with all these other feelings.
Elle: I identify as a queer tween. I just want to say that I am grateful to be who I am, where I am, to still be alive, to have people who support me and care for me, and to have friends who love me just the way I am.
V: I've been a Rhode Islander for almost 11 years. I was born and raised in Oklahoma. My family has resided in Oklahoma for almost 50 years. My family was displaced by the Vietnam War and we up in Oklahoma. I grew up at a time when Dan Savage had yet to brand his slogan, “It gets better” and I've always really resented that sentiment -that it passively gets better as I hold the death of Nex dear to my heart.
I also mourn the deaths of almost 13,000 children in Palestine over the past few months. All of these things are related. We often want to compare violence against violence and oftentimes the Zionist industry relies on propaganda very similar to how anti-trans propaganda moves here in the US and throughout the world.
And I don't know if it's a true Venn diagram and I don't know if it's just a circle either. I think of them as cogs. I think of them as machines. These are machines of death. There is no reason why a public school should be the place where a young person dies. There is no reason why a young person should die because of education. And there should certainly not be almost 13,000 children dead because of our taxpayer dollars. None of these are unrelated.
Right now, here in Rhode Island, two provider protection bills are going to be heard, hopefully in this legislative session. Those bills are going to be major safeguards for families here in Rhode Island.
The queer and trans friends that I love and have dear to my heart who are also from Oklahoma all share stories of being physically assaulted as young students in schools and having no one care.
I'm often asked, “What would I tell my younger self?”
I don't know. There's nothing that I think I could say to a young person to prove that it gets better. I just had to get there. How did I survive? It was connection, right?
When I think about Nex's name, I think of causal nexus, what is cause and effect. We know how this death is created. It is rhetoric. It is rhetoric pedaled by money. It is pedaled by private donors and it's also pedaled by the war machine that we as US taxpayers fund None of these are unrelated.
What I also want us to understand is that this isn't far off in a distant school. Districts here in Rhode Island are also under very similar [circumstances] because of individuals like Nicole Solas who is in my view, quite the soulless person. It requires a lack of soul - a lack of heart - to file a lawsuit against a public school district because they are teaching true histories of race, queer identities, and trans identities.
However, empathy is no longer my concern. Whenever I think about “protect trans youth” as a slogan, I don't want it to be divorced from a material action. When I say protect trans youth, I mean that it is ultimately about ensuring that all trans youth become adults.
There's not a simple answer as to how we get there. I can't tell you how I made it to adulthood other than a lot of awful things and a lot of good things. But I think if I could tell my younger self anything, it's that it is worth it because I am happier. But I'm also distanced from a lot of what I could accept as safe. If you are an adult, I encourage you to do clear work for the young people in your life. If you have young people in your life, let them know that they don't have to know who they are, but that you can be someone who can support them as they figure out who they are, as they change their minds and make mistakes. That is something that a lot of young, queer, and trans youth don't receive.
Some of you may know me from the Providence Poetry Slam. I'm going to just share a poem from Audrey Lorde. It's called A Litany for Survival.
Speaker: Nex's death hit me like a truck. When I was in high school, less than five years ago, for every slur that I was called instead of my name, never would I have imagined that another student would commit such violence against me in an educational facility. I encourage you to observe the community you're in and to support one another in this area that is generally considered safe because without one another we have nothing.
B: I didn't know that I was non-binary until last year. And I don't think I would have been able to explore that as openly without all the friends that I've made in the past year. They've all been very patient. I appreciate that so much.
I am going to carry Nex with me tomorrow when I'm back on campus. Being non-binary means so much more to me now than it did when I first thought about it. If you need some positivity, there is someone on Instagram I follow named Jeffrey Marsh. They're very kind, loving, and accepting, and they've helped me through a lot.
Pat: I feel very angry. Our kids are facing so much danger in schools, and that's where they should be the safest. I am fucking furious that the educators and administration did not bring Nex to the hospital and that there was a police officer on a video discouraging Nex from pressing charges because they splashed water at the girls. I just want to say that if you know any trans kids or kids who are questioning themselves - talk to them and give them the space to be loved and accepted in whatever state they're in, in every moment they're in that state.
Corey: It looks like most people are starting to head out. I do want to offer this quote before we go, but I want you all to say it with me:
It is our duty to fight for our freedom.
It is our duty to win.
We must love each other and support each other.
We have nothing to lose but our chains.
-Assata Shakur
