Oklahoma's Gender Identity Laws Under Fire Amidst Tragic Student Incidents

Recent events in Oklahoma are bringing the debate over the gender identity of children to a boil. With the investigation into the death of a transgender student at school last month and the separate ongoing litigation over an assault related to a different transgender student at another school, the state’s recent laws on restricting gender identity are being called into question more than ever.

Oklahoma's Bathroom Bill

Two years ago, Oklahoma signed into law SB 615, a bill that requires students at Oklahoma public schools to use restrooms that match the sex listed on their birth certificates. Now in effect, the statute provides that transgender students who decline to use the restroom required under this law must use “a single-occupancy restroom or changing room” provided by the school.

The statute also requires schools to create policies for disciplinary actions for students found in violation. The law also forbids schools from adopting policies that contradict its provisions and penalizes noncompliant schools with decreased funding. Finally, it allows parents to sue the public school district should the school fail to comply.

Bathroom Assault Leads to Lawsuit

Later that same year, a fifteen-year-old female at a public high school in Norman, Oklahoma, was “attacked and severely beaten” by a seventeen-year-old transgender student in the bathroom that was designated for girls. In May of last year, her parents brought a lawsuit against the school district under a local governmental tort claims act. They allege that the school’s failure to comply with the bathroom bill resulted in this incident, which caused their daughter harm in the form of “severe physical and mental injuries, severe physical and mental pain and suffering, and severe emotional distress.” Allegedly, the girl had told the school principal “that the male transgender student had confided in her that he was, in fact, a male student that identified as a female.”

The school asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit because they maintained that there was no viable legal theory under the bathroom bill that held them accountable. All the law required of them, they argued, was to designate single-sex bathrooms for multiple occupancy, which they’d done. The law did not require them to supervise or enforce students using those bathrooms. The attorney for the girl’s family responded that it would be absurd to read the statute as requiring so little; if the point of the statute was only to make schools place “male” and “female” designations on the bathroom, it would be doing nothing new, since schools already did that. Clearly, the girls' family argued, the law’s intention was to require schools to restrict the use of bathrooms to designated genders as assigned at birth.

The court denied the school’s motion to dismiss, so the litigation is still underway as of now. But in the meantime, Oklahoma has seen an even more tragic incident related to transgender policy in its public schools, just last month. Although the facts and motivations behind the incident are still unclear, at the very least, the result was the death of a transgender high school student, following an altercation in a public school bathroom.

A Transgender Student's Tragedy

Nex Benedict was a 16-year-old student in Owasso High School, a public school in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Benedict did not see themselves as strictly male or female and often used they-them pronouns.

On a Wednesday afternoon in early February, a “physical altercation” occurred in one of the Owasso High restrooms. According to the school’s press release, the students involved were only in the restroom for less than two minutes, as other students and a staff member broke up the altercation quickly. Everyone involved walked to the assistant principal’s office and nurse’s office afterward, and administrators began addressing the situation by taking statements and contacting parents.

Regarding the severity of the physical altercation and any resulting injuries, the school stated that “while it was determined that ambulance service was not required, out of an abundance of caution, it was recommended to one parent that their student visit a medical facility for further examination.” This student was presumably Benedict, as no other student was recommended for medical care following the incident.

Following the altercation, Benedict’s mother was told that her child had been suspended for two weeks. Benedict was injured in the altercation and was taken to the hospital later the same day. They were discharged the same day but complained of a sore head afterward and were rushed back to the hospital again the following day. Following an autopsy, the police also stated that Benedict’s death was not the result of physical injuries from the altercation at school. The cause of death was not stated, though post-mortem tests such as toxicology were still pending.

Any more details about their passing are being kept confidential by the school, allegedly due to privacy concerns and the ongoing police investigation. No arrests have yet been made connected to the incident. The school has stated that “there will still be pieces of information that the district will never be able to share due to federal privacy laws.” So, whether the student took their own life or whether their death was caused by or related to the altercation at school are points of speculation rather than fact. The school has stated that “the speculation and misinformation surrounding the case has intensified in recent days.”

Calls for Reform from Many Sides 

Gay and transgender rights groups have expressed outrage over the incident, and many maintain that Benedict was attacked because of their gender identity. The Benedict’s family lawyer said that the family was praying for change from what they deemed “bullying.”

If lawyers plan to bring lawsuit on behalf of the deceased student, it’s not clear yet whether those facts would be related to the Oklahoma statute or casting the school district as the principal defendant. Regardless of whether Benedict’s family decides to litigate, it seems that other transgender interest groups and Oklahoma citizens are calling for policy reform of what has lately seemed to be not just a contentious bathroom bill, but possibly a problematic one.

Related Resources:

• Transgender Bathroom Laws in Public Schools: A National Overview (FindLaw's Learn About the Law)
• Biden Reversed the Ban on Transgender People in the Military: What Does That Mean? (FindLaw's Law and Daily Life)
• LGBTQ+ Rights and Gender Identity Discrimination (FindLaw's Learn About the Law)