After the death of a non-binary student, school director defends restrictive gender policy

During his time as state superintendent of Oklahoma’s public schools, Ryan Walters, a former high school history teacher, has transformed himself into one of the most strident culture warriors in a state known for its sharply conservative politics.

Following the death earlier this month of a 16-year-old nonbinary student a day after an altercation in a high school girls’ bathroom, gay and transgender advocates accused Mr. Walters of fomenting an atmosphere of dangerous intolerance within public schools.

In his first interview responding to the death of student Nex Benedict, Mr. Walters told The New York Times that the death was a tragedy, but that it was his views on how gender issues should be addressed in schools. didn’t change.

“There are not multiple genders. There are two. That’s how God created us,” Mr. Walters said, saying he did not believe nonbinary or transgender people exist. He said Oklahoma schools would not allow students to use preferred names or pronouns that differ from their birth gender.

“You always treat individuals with dignity and respect because they are made in God’s image,” Mr. Walters said. “But that doesn’t change the truth.”

Mr. Walters, who is ultimately in charge of Oklahoma’s public schools and has been discussed as a possible candidate for higher office, is one of the loudest voices in the state trying to prevent LGBTQ issues from being discussed and discussed in schools are promoted. His fellow Republicans in the Legislature have supported a wave of new and proposed laws targeting gay and transgender people.

In interviews, transgender students said the rhetoric of officials like Mr. Walters was seen by their classmates as license to harass and bully them at school.

And at an Oklahoma School Board meeting this week, Sean Cummings, the vice mayor of a town adjacent to Oklahoma City known as The Village, blamed the board’s anti-gay, anti-transgender policies for the bullying of Nex. “You guys caused it,” he said, addressing Mr. Walters directly.

Questions remained about the bullying that relatives said Nex had experienced at Owasso High School before the Feb. 7 bathroom altercation, and what connection it might have had to their deaths. Police said Wednesday that Nex did not die from trauma, a finding that Walters echoed.

“We have been told the death is not directly related to the fight at school,” he said, warning that the investigation is ongoing.

Late Friday, Owasso police released several videos showing Nex walking around on his own after the altercation and, separately, speaking to a police officer at the hospital.

Nex told the officer that they had thrown water on several girls who were making fun of them in the girls’ bathroom, and that three girls had then thrown them to the ground and “beat them up.”

“I blacked out,” Nex told the officer.

Investigators had yet to determine what caused the student’s death, said Nick Boatman, a spokesman for the Owasso Police Department.

Sarah Kate Ellis, the president of advocacy group GLAAD, called the death “a tragic, senseless and shocking attack that should never be forgotten.” an instagram post this week.

Mr Walters said the tragedy was made worse by outside advocates trying to make a political point.

“I think it’s terrible that we’ve had some radical leftists who decided to go with a political agenda and weave a narrative that is not true,” he said. “You’ve taken a tragedy and you’ve got a number of people who have tried to exploit it for political gain.”

Officers have interviewed students and staff at Owasso High School. The school district has said the altercation lasted less than two minutes and that the students involved were able to walk to a nurse’s office afterward.

Police were not notified until after Nex was taken to the hospital by a family member, police said. They went home that day. The next day, Nex was taken back to the hospital by local doctors and pronounced dead. The state coroner’s office declined to comment on the autopsy or toxicology results, but said the final report would eventually be made public.

Much of the criticism Mr. Walters has received has focused on his recent appointment of Chaya Raichik to a state commission. Ms. Raichik, who has posted anti-gay and anti-transgender content on her X account, Libs of TikTok, serves on a committee that reviews the appropriateness of school library books.

“Ryan Walters has created a devastatingly hostile environment for trans, two-spirit, and gender nonconforming students,” said Nicole McAfee, executive director of Freedom Oklahoma, which advocates for transgender and gay rights. Since Nex’s death, she said, “More times than I can count, I’ve seen people share an image Ryan Walters put forward during his campaign of people in a bathroom with language that specifically denigrates trans youth.”

Mr. Walters, 38, is an unapologetic lightning rod in Oklahoma, launching direct verbal attacks on school districts, teachers unions and occasionally individual teachers whom he has accused of promoting “pornography” or “radical gender theory” in public schools. He was appointed secretary of education by Governor Kevin Stitt in 2020 and went on to win election as state inspector in 2022.

He has, among other things, pressured teachers in several districts to resign a teacher who protested the ban on certain booksand a primary school principal who performed as transvestites outside school hours.

Such an aggressively partisan approach surprised some of Mr. Walters’s former students, many of whom admired him as an approachable teacher who valued debate. “Walters would go out of his way to be apolitical,” said Shane Hood, who took at least three history classes with Mr. Walters at McAlester High School. As a teacher, Mr. Hood said, he gave few indications of his political views, beyond displaying large cutouts of Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan.

“He was probably a favorite at school,” said Mr. Hood, 22, adding that Mr. Walters’ current political persona did not match the teacher he knew.

Mr. Walters’ public battles have arisen as conservative states across the country have passed laws restricting the rights of transgender people. In Oklahoma, lawmakers have banned gender transition care for minors and expressly prohibited the use of gender-neutral markings on birth certificates.

The Oklahoma Legislature is currently considering a bill that would prohibit residents from changing their gender designation on birth certificates, and another that would require public schools to adopt the policy that gender is an “immutable biological characteristic” and prohibit the use of alternate preferred names or pronouns. Another proposal, known as the Patriotism, not a Pride Actwould prevent government agencies from displaying flags or symbols in support of gay and transgender people.

“It’s just incredibly damaging,” said Whitney Cipolla, a board member at Oklahomans for Equality, an organization that advocates for gay and transgender rights. “I know queer teachers who are afraid to teach.”

In interviews, transgender and non-binary teens in Oklahoma said the political climate had made things more difficult for them.

“There are a lot of feelings of helplessness,” said Hali, 18, a transgender girl and high school senior in the city of Claremore, who asked that her last name not be used for fear she could be targeted by anti-transgender activists. . “You always have a little fear that you could be attacked, that you could be one of the victims.”

Hali said she knew Nex after meeting them as part of a program in Tulsa that provides counseling and other support to youth, including those who are gay or transgender. Nex was “very nice and outgoing and a very sweet person,” Hali said, but added that she didn’t know much about the altercation that led to Nex’s death.

When asked how Oklahoma schools should treat students who identify as transgender, Mr. Walters said the schools “will continue to treat every student with dignity and respect,” but that they “will not buy into the transgender ideology by accepting all of those premises” and will force teachers to embrace them.

Mr. Walters, who described himself as a history lover and reader, said he saw the nation at something of a crossroads.

“I really see a civil war going on, where the left is really fighting for the soul of our country,” he said. “They’re undermining the very principles that made this country great, our Judeo-Christian values ​​and our traditions in this country.”

Returning to those values ​​and traditions, he added: “that is what will unite us.”

Kirsten Noyes contributed to research.