As a nonbinary Native person, I am holding Nex Benedict in my heart this weekend. Nex was a gender-expansive 16-year-old whose mother was a member of the Choctaw Nation. Nex died on February 8, after enduring a beating in their high school bathroom on February 7. Nex’s grandmother and adoptive parent Sue Benedict said of their identity, “Nex did not see themselves as male or female.
