The President of the United States released a statement yesterday on the death of nonbinary highschool student Nex Benedict.
I’m glad that he did. Nex Benedict’s loss should be mourned, their memory honored. Their brutal beating in a high school bathroom should be faced and reviled. It should be both a reminder and a call to action for anyone who thinks that we don’t have to worry anymore about violence towards LGBTQIA+ people in our country.
But it is a message from afar. President Biden has not been, nor will he ever be, in that bathroom, slammed against the floor, verbally and physically crushed and wounded. His words are from a commander-in-chief to victims in a war he will never know or truly understand. This doesn’t mean that he shouldn’t have said them.
It’s just important that we see them in context.
The story of Nex Benedict makes me sick with rage and grief and fear. I’m a little bit closer to this war than the President, having had an adolescent child not that long ago and a spouse who teaches high school. I see very clearly that every adult who speaks words of hate and rejection and mockery based on gender identity and/or sexual orientation has a hand in this death.
They have spoken it into existence: around dinner tables, in online rants, at school board meetings.
Last night American screenwriter and director Ron Nyswaner made this appeal during his speech at this year’s GLAAD Awards.
It’s 20 seconds long. Watch it.
These are words from someone who has been right in there in the battle. They move me in a way that the President’s words do not. Because he has been there. He knows. And his experiences have turned him into a warrior for acceptance. Nyswaner is an encourager in the face of all of the rejection. He is offering hope to young people who feel they have none.
“We will not stop fighting to be here. And we will win… Love always wins.”
But love will only win if we live it, and we must live it fiercely. Kind words from far away do not have the power to protect the young and vulnerable as they lie bruised and broken on a bathroom floor.
When you speak, when you act, and when you vote - - be the shield that protects them, the encourager when hope seems lost. Most of all, be a warrior for acceptance.
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