After the deaths of non-binary students, Oklahoma’s school principal is defending a strict gender policy

In his three years 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 strident 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 following the death of the student, Nex Benedict, Mr. Walters told The New York Times that the death was a tragedy but that it did not change his views on how gender issues should be handled in schools.

“There are not multiple genders. There are two. That is how God created us,” Mr Walters said, saying he did not believe non-binary 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, has been one of the loudest voices in the state seeking to prevent the discussion and promotion of LGBTQ issues in schools. 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 from officials like Mr. Walters was seen by their classmates as permission to harass and bully them at school.

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

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

“We were told the death was not directly related to the fight at the school,” he said, cautioning that the investigation was ongoing.

Nick Boatman, a spokesman for the Owasso Police Department, said investigators were reviewing video footage from the high school and planned to release it “at some point.” Investigators, he said, had yet to determine what caused the student’s death.

Sarah Kate Ellis, 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 follow a political agenda and try to weave a narrative that hasn’t been true,” he said. “You’ve experienced a tragedy, and some people have tried to exploit it for political gain.”

Officers conducted interviews with students and staff at Owasso High School. The school district has said the altercation lasted less than two minutes and the students involved were then able to walk to a nurse’s office.

A police report was only filed after Nex was taken to a hospital by a family member, police said. They went home that day. The next day, Nex was rushed to hospital by local doctors and pronounced dead. The state medical examiner’s office declined to comment on the autopsy or any 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, is part of a committee that reviews the suitability of school library books. “Ryan Walters has created a devastatingly hostile environment for transgender, 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, they said: “More times than I can count, I’ve seen people share an image that Ryan Walters put forward during his campaign of people in a bathroom with language that specifically villainizes trans youth.”

But for years, Walters, 38, has been an unapologetic lightning rod in Oklahoma, launching direct verbal attacks on school districts, teachers unions and sometimes individual teachers he accused of promoting “pornography” or “radical gender theory.” public schools. He was appointed state inspector by Gov. Kevin Stitt in 2020 and went on to win election for a new term in 2022.

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

Such an aggressively partisan approach surprised some of Mr. Walters’ 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, other than showing 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.’s public battles Walters emerged as conservative states across the country passed laws restricting the rights of transgender people. In Oklahoma, lawmakers have banned gender transition care for minors expressly prohibited the use of gender-neutral markings on birth certificates.

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

“It’s just incredibly harmful,” said Whitney Cipolla, a board member of Oklahomans for Equality, which advocates for gay and transgender rights. “I know queer educators 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 assistance to young people, including those who are gay or transgender. Nex was “very nice and outgoing and a very sweet person,” Hali said, but added that she did not know much about the altercation that preceded Nex’s death.

When asked how Oklahoma schools should treat students who identify as transgender, Mr. Walters said the schools would “continue to treat every student with dignity and respect” but would not “buy into the transgender ideology by doing all this principles to accept’ and teachers to adopt them.

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

“I really see that there is a civil war going on, where the left is really fighting for the soul of our country,” he said. “They undermine 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 research contributed.