GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement on their website says the autopsy report didn't provide enough information and failed to answer questions.
The Oklahoma State Medical Examiner's Office has ruled the manner of death of 16-year-old nonbinary Owasso High School student Nex Benedict a suicide, according to reports.
The summary autopsy report from the medical examiner's office, which was released Wednesday, lists the probable cause of death as diphenhydramine and fluoxetine combined toxicity, leading the medical examiner in the report to rule the manner of death as suicide, according to KOCO.
Diphenhydramine is an antihistamine to relieve allergies, and fluoxetine is an antidepressant. It is unknown how much of the two drugs were in the high school student’s system.
The full report will be released on March 27, according to ABC News.
Despite the autopsy report release, advocacy group GLAAD is demanding more answers.
GLAAD president and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement on their website the autopsy report didn't provide enough information and failed to answer questions.
"There is nothing in this one page document to explain why the medical examiner checked a box," Ellis said. "Media must have learned by now that they need to continue to question what they get from law enforcement and government entities in Oklahoma that have so far failed to protect vulnerable students and responsibly provide any information that is critical for student safety. Nex Benedict's family and the entire state of Oklahoma deserve far more answers and accountability from those charged with keeping Nex and all youth safe."
Benedict died on Feb. 8, 2024, just one day after being involved in a fight with their schoolmates, which may have started as bullying over gender identity and "was broken up by other students who were present in the restroom and a school staff member who was supervising outside of the restroom," police said at the time.
Ellis said in GLAAD’s statement that LGBTQ+ students in Oklahoma deserve to live "free from state-sponsored bullying and discrimination."
Ellis’ recent statement comes on the heels of GLAAD calling for the removal of Oklahoma’s top education official, whose views and policies on LGBTQIA+ issues have come under heavy scrutiny since Benedict’s death.
GLAAD’s ads, which launched earlier this month, call for the removal of superintendent of Public Instruction, Ryan Walters.
In an interview with ABC News weeks after Bendict’s death, Walters said, “we’re not going to lie to students. And we’re not going to push a gender ideology.”
Ellis said Walters “dangerously and recklessly prioritized escalating attacks against LGBTQ, indigenous, and vulnerable youth, promoting lies, spreading disinformation, and pushing broad scale discriminatory policies that do nothing to improve education, [with] rhetoric and policies to erase the culture and history of entire communities of Oklahomans … in alignment with national anti-LGBTQ groups like Moms for Liberty and extremists on social media.”
Last month, in the first Board of Education meeting since the news of Benedict’s death, business owner and vice mayor of The Village, a suburb of Oklahoma City, Sean Cummings slammed Walters’ anti-LGBTQIA+ record, telling him, “You have actual blood on your hands.
“You and your rhetoric and your inability to do anything as a board here are partially responsible for emboldening bullies to jump a [student] in the bathroom,” Cummings told Walters at the meeting.
On the same day that Benedict’s autopsy report was released, Walters took to X, formerly Twitter, to slam Chasten Glezman Buttigieg, husband of secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, after Chasten criticized Oklahoma for hiring Libs of TikTok creator Chaya Raichik to the state Library Media Review Committee in January.
“Well @ChayaRaichik10 knows the difference between a girl and a boy. You, your husband, and the entire Biden administration seem to struggle with that,” Walters wrote along with posting screenshots of Chasten’s tweets.
In a statement to Inside Edition Digital, Walters says, "The loss of our student in Owasso is tragic for the family, the community, and our state. The LGBTQ groups pushing a false narrative are one of the biggest threats to our democracy and I remain, more than ever, committed to never backing down to a woke mob."
Benedict’s death came more than a year after they began being bullied, allegedly by schoolmates at Owasso High School.
The bullying Nex experienced had allegedly started at the beginning of the 2023 school year, a few months after Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt signed a bill that required public school students to use bathrooms that matched the sex listed on their birth certificates, The Independent reported.
