Vigils took place across the nation for an Oklahoma teenager who died the day after a fight in a high school bathroom in which the nonbinary student said they were a target of bullying.
Nex Benedict, a 16-year-old who identified as nonbinary and used they/them pronouns, got into an altercation with three girls in an Owasso High School bathroom who were picking on Benedict and some friends. The girls attacked Benedict for pouring water on them, the teen told police in a video released Friday.
Benedict’s mother called emergency responders to the family home the day after the fight, saying Benedict’s breathing was shallow, their eyes were rolling back and their hands were curled, according to audio released by Owasso police.
Thank you for your thoughtful response.
I was thinking of Thailand in particular since that was where my studies were grounded and my understanding is that the general conceptualization of gender is not identical to western approaches. I do tend to try to steer away from terms like “trans” when talking about other cultures because I’m not sure how well the western idea of a trans person translates into cultures with different ideas of genders. I know enough to know that I don’t know enough, but I do know that what we in the US consider LGBT has absolutely no relation to Ancient Greece or modern Thailand.
But I do know that there’s gender-based separation in most of the Thai monasteries that I’m familiar with, and that monks are conscious of sexually based attractions as distractions to be avoided. I strongly suspect that a person we consider trans would be accepted as a nun - at least, in a non-western, traditional order. But that’s based on my overall readings - it’s really weird to realize that I’ve never even thought to ask that question.