#ryan walters

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Erin Reed at Erin In The Morning (04.25.2024):

On Friday, the Biden administration released its final Title IX rules, which include protections for LGBTQ+ students by clarifying that Title IX forbids discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The rule change could have a significant impact as it would supersede bathroom bans and other discriminatory policies that have become increasingly common in Republican states within the United States. As of Thursday morning, however, officials in at least four states — Oklahoma, Louisiana, Florida, and South Carolina — have directed schools to ignore the regulations, potentially setting up a federal showdown that may ultimately end up in a protracted court battle in the lead-up to the 2024 elections.

Louisiana State Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley was the first to respond, decrying the fact that the new Title IX regulations could block teachers and other students from exercising what has been dubbed by some a “right to bully” transgender students by using their old names and pronouns intentionally. Asserting that Title IX law does not protect trans and queer students, Brumley states that schools “should not alter policies or procedures at this time.” Critically, several courts have ruled that trans and queer students are protected by Title IX, including the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals in a recent case in West Virginia. In South Carolina, Schools Superintendent Ellen Weaver wrote in a letter that providing protections for transgender and LGBTQ+ students under Title IX “would rescind 50 years of progress & equality of opportunity by putting girls and women at a disadvantage in the educational arena,” apparently leaving transgender kids out of her definition of those who deserve progress and equality of opportunity. She then directed schools to ignore the new directive while waiting for court challenges. While South Carolina does not have a bathroom ban or statewide Don’t Say Gay or Trans law, such bills continue to be proposed in the state.

[...] Florida Commissioner of Education Manny Díaz Jr. also joined in in instructing schools not to implement Title IX regulations. In a letter issued to area schools, Díaz stated that the new Title IX regulations were tantamount to “gaslighting the country into believing that biological sex no longer has any meaning.” Governor Ron DeSantis approved of the letter and stated that Florida “will not comply.” Florida has notably been the site of some of the most viciously anti-queer and anti-trans legislation in recent history, including a Don’t Say Gay or Trans law that was used to force a trans female teacher to go by “Mr.” State Education Superintendent Ryan Walters of Oklahoma was the latest to echo similar sentiments. Walters has recently appointed the right-wing media figure Chaya Raichik of Libs of TikTok to an advisory role “to improve school safety,” and notably, Chaya Raichik has posed proudly with papers accusing her of instigating bomb threats with her incendiary posts about LGBTQ+ people in classrooms.

At least four states-- Oklahoma, Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana-- are telling schools to ignore President Biden's new trans-friendly Title IX rule changes that protect trans students and staff.

[straightmenobsession]

Beefy IFBB Pro Bodybuilder & Coach Ryan Walters.

“Just gotta keep LIVIN..."

[planetofsnarfs]

When a child dies – any child – the loss is incalculable. There’s the loss of a son or daughter, a sibling, a cousin, a best friend. There’s a loss of a life, snuffed out before its time. The loss of a future – who knows what that child could have accomplished? 

And when that child dies, particularly under horrific circumstances, there is a loss of innocence for all of us, regardless of whether we knew that child or not. Among the first impulses for anyone with a heart who wishes to protect other children is to find a way – any way – to prevent a loss like that from happening again.

The hyper-cruel antithesis of this is what’s going on right now in Oklahoma in the wake of 16-year-old Nex Benedict’s death. As we first reported, Nex, a transgender sophomore at Owasso High School, was brutally beaten by other students in a school bathroom and died the following day. The incident has drawn national attention – but not nearly enough, in my opinion – with many attributing the violent act to a culture of transphobia they say is being stoked by state officials.

Days before Nex’s death, The Oklahoman reported that there were a whopping 50 bills in the state legislature targeting LGBTQ+ people. The state ranks 48th in both education and health care. Don’t you think the state legislature and state government officials have better things to do than sow queer hate among its citizens? 

One of those state officials is the superintendent of public instruction, Ryan Walters. Even before Nex’s death, Walters was virulently anti-LGBTQ+. More than 350 LGBTQ+ organizations, activists, and celebrities urged his removal from office after Nex died, saying he has encouraged “a climate of hate and bigotry” throughout his career. Nex’s death didn’t stop him from fanning the flames of hate.

Walters poured salt into a festering wound, telling The New York Times, “There's not multiple genders. There’s two. That’s how God created us.” He added that he did not believe that nonbinary or transgender people exist and that the state would not let students use names or pronouns other than those matching their birth records.

It seems the goal of the official responses around Nex’s death has been to protect those who bullied and beat him. Police were quick to release initial reports saying that Nex "did not die as a result of trauma."

It’s important to note that school officials did not reprimand, sanction, or report to authorities the students who critically harmed Nex. “No report of the incident was made to the Owasso Police Department prior to the notification at the hospital,” Chief Dan Yancey told The Advocate.

The police jumped out over their skis with their initial statement, which raised eyebrows. In fact, Sue Benedict, who was Nex’s adoptive mother, told the news site Popular Information that a statement released by the Owasso Police was a “big cover."

Parents and other members of the public expressed outrage over how the school was handling the response to Nex’s death, particularly pointing out that protecting queer kids and making sure that it didn’t happen again was not a priority for the school board. “Apparently people don’t feel safe here. I can’t imagine why at all,” public commenter Walter Masterson said at the first Owasso school board meeting after Nex's death. “A more 'woke' school board would see the death of a child and work to make sure it never happens again. Not this board.” 

Then, along comes the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Oklahoma, which concluded that Nex died by suicide. The medical examiner’s one-page summary report identifies the cause of death as combined toxicity from diphenhydramine (Benadryl) and fluoxetine (Prozac). Noticeably absent from the report were all the injuries Nex incurred the day before.

My colleague Christopher Wiggins was once a paramedic. When he saw the cause of death was attributed to two very common medications, he decided to investigate. He’s a damn good reporter, and his suspicions regarding the report were justified. He reached out to two toxicology experts, who first made it clear that they weren’t privy to Nex’s autopsy report; however, they told Christopher that the risk of death from these medications, especially when used as directed, is extraordinarily low.

In response to the coroner’s report, GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement, “Nex’s family accurately notes how the report released this week does not reflect the full picture of what happened to Nex and continues to urge accountability of those who failed to keep Nex and all students in Oklahoma safe from bullying, harassment, assault, and most brutally, death.”

Now you have this full picture of all those involved, coupled with a backdrop of hate. Taken in its totality, the reaction to Nex’s death shows that a corrupt, do-nothing clique is part of a deceptive lie and cover-up that shows they did nothing, zero, zilch to protect the life of Nex or any child like him. The authorities' only goal is to protect the perpetrators, not just those who attacked Nex but all those who will be emboldened to beat others just like Nex in the future in school bathrooms throughout the state.

The grossly deceptive response to Nex’s death makes the state of Oklahoma a breeding ground for the bullying – and for beating to injury or death – of LGBTQ+ kids. What the state is doing goes against all we know about protecting vulnerable children. 

If the state legislature pushes hate bills, if state officials spew hate, if local authorities and administrators cover up hate, then you create this breeding ground. You create an atmosphere where that hate explodes, like it did with Nex, and you use hate to demean the victim and ennoble the haters.

Suicide rates among LGBTQ+ youth are astronomically high. If Nex ultimately did commit suicide -- and this initial autopsy report does not make a convincing case -- then Oklahoma officials still deserve to be held accountable. Oklahoma's LGBTQ+ suicide prevention line saw a 230 percent increase in calls after the cause of Nex's death was revealed by the coroner. As transgender activist Ari Drennan noted, in a climate of anti-trans hate, "every trans suicide is a murder." 

But if Nex's death was ruled a suicide to avoid addressing anti-LGBTQ+ bullying, Oklahoma officials have crossed a line. Using suicide as a cover, as a deception, should be a crime.

It is worth repeating the ominous words of Walters that nonbinary or transgender people don’t exist. That means, in Walters’s world, Nex never existed. And if Nex never existed, how would Walters and other officials associated with him be able to objectively investigate Nex’s death?

All of which means that Nex’s autopsy report is a lie and a facade. Null and void. Plain and simple. Nex and his family deserve so much more, and we need to keep protesting loudly until we get the truth.

[seileach67]

Oklahoma’s Anti-LGBTQ Superintendent Confronted to His Face About Nex Benedict’s Death 

[mermazeablaze]

I live in Oklahoma. I am Indigenous. I am a mom of three teen girls, all of them identify as members of the Alphabet Mafia, **I** identify as a member of the Alphabet Mafia. & I wear my Pride merch all year round not just a singular month.

Because of my anxiety I avoid media involving specific topics, especially when it comes to school violence. Not because I don't care, but because I care too much. & I am active in my community & help where I can, I don't have to watch the news to do that.

But Nex Benedict's murder is deeply affecting me. It's not fair. You raise your babies the best you can. You send them to school to get an education to make them the best they can be. & they're supposed to be safe there. & they're not. It's literally nightmare fuel, which is why I avoid the news as much as I can.

& it doesn't help when your own children are Indigenous, Hispanic, gay & female. & you hear stories like this & you just feel like you're internally bleeding for a child you have never met.

& you can deeply feel for their parents & family. Because though it hasn't happened to you & yours - you live with that fear everyday. You live with it for so long & the fear is so palpable, it feels like it could be real at any moment.

Every phone call from the school, every text from one of your children - it's no longer the age of, "What did they do wrong? What assignment are they missing?" No. It's now firstly & foremost, "Oh my God, what's happening?"

& I am so horrified & saddened that Nex's family has to live with, "Oh my God, what's happening?"

So today I am wearing my "Let Me Be Perfectly Queer" overshirt & my "Free Mom Hugs" pin in remembrance of Nex. But also as a very public "Fuck You" to those who keep allowing these types of tragedies to happen.

[smashing-yng-man]

[muscleaddictza]

[hobartsaglet]

Idk if this has gone around here yet, but here's a petition i think you should sign. Specifically, "Sign and support Ryan Walters being removed from his position as School Superintendent of Oklahoma", in relation to the tragedy of Nex Benedict's murder.

[planetofsnarfs]

Sue Benedict, in an interview for the news site Popular Information, has called the Owasso Police Department’s Feb. 21 statement regarding the death of her child, Nex Benedict, “a big cover” released simply as “something to calm the people.”

And just-released video footage from school surveillance cameras and from a police body cam combined with 9-1-1 calls appear to point to what the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation calls a “cascade of failures [by] school, local government and law enforcement” officials.

Non-binary 16-year-old Nex Benedict died Feb. 8, a day after being beaten by three other students in a bathroom at Owasso High School. But it wasn’t until Feb. 20 when the website Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents reported on the incident that Nex’s death begin gaining wide attention.

Initial reports indicated that a teacher came into the bathroom and broke up the fight, and that Nex, at the time, was unable to walk to the nurse’s office on their own. Reports said that school officials failed to call an ambulance and did not report the assault to police.

Nex’s family took them to the emergency room where they were treated and released the same night. The following day Nex was rushed back to the hospital where they were pronounced dead.

School officials have disputed those early reports, and on Wednesday, Feb. 21, Owasso Police posted a statement to their Facebook page that, Popular Information reports, “appeared to defend Owasso High School’s response to the Feb. 7 incident. The state also suggested that Nex’s death the following day was unrelated to the bathroom assault.”

The statement said that, according to the medical examiner, autopsy reports “did not indicate that the student died as a result of trauma.” The medical examiner’s report did not, in fact, actually say that and the autopsy is not yet complete.

Owasso Police Lt. Nick Boatman told Public Information that it is not normal practice for police to release autopsy results before an autopsy is complete, but they had done so in this case “to head off some of this national scrutiny.” Boatman also acknowledged that the medical examiner “did not explicitly tell him that Nex ‘did not die from something as a result of that fight.’ But that’s how Boatman interpreted the medical examiner’s comments,” Popular Information noted.

Popular Information got a copy of an “affidavit for search warrant” by police on Feb. 9 that indicated police suspected “foul play” and were investigating Nex’s death as a murder. Boatman told Popular Information that murder charges are “still on the table” at this time.

WHAT THE VIDEO SHOWS

According to a press release issued today (Saturday, Feb. 24) by GLAAD via email, newly-released school surveillance video and police body cam video contradict at least some of the statements by school and police officials and show possible police misconduct.

As per the GLAAD email:

Newly released police body cam footage from inside the emergency room raises concerns about questionable police involvement:

• The police officer discouraged Sue Benedict from asking him to file a police report and saying it would open up Nex to legal liability and that it would be a shame for any of the students to have to deal with a criminal situation for quote “something so minuscule.” • The police officer told Nex that they were “just as guilty as” their attackers. This followed Nex explaining that after repeated harassment and bullying from three students, they threw water on the students. Those three students then began to violently beat Nex, slamming their head on the floor until they lost consciousness. • The police officer described the verbal bullying of Nex by classmates as “free speech.” • The police officer suggested multiple excuses for why the school did not follow protocol and alert law enforcement about the assault.

Newly released school surveillance footage show Owasso High School officials did not follow protocol:

• The police officer confirmed that protocol dictates that Nex’s high school should have notified police about the assault and that the school “dropped the ball.” • The police officer then suggested multiple excuses for why the school broke protocol.

New 911 audio shows Nex’s mother had to report the assault after the school did not, and details Nex’s final moments:

• Nex’s mother Sue Benedict called 9-1-1 twice. First on the day of the attack, from the emergency room, with Nex by her side in a hospital bed, to report an assault had taken place at school. • Sue Benedict made the second 9-1-1 call the following day when Nex collapsed at home. Sue reported Nex’s “eyes rolled back into their head,” their “hands curled” and Nex was “struggling to breathe.”

Newly released videos detail horrors of attack and reveal ongoing history of bullying and targeted harassment experienced by Nex:

• Nex’s mother Sue Benedict explains Nex was pinned to the ground and beaten until they blacked out. • School footage shows Nex unsteady on their feet after the brutal 3-on-1 beating. Note that the school did not call an ambulance or the police. • Nex and their mother discuss the ongoing bullying and harassment Nex faced at school, naming specifically that Nex was targeted for the way they dressed. • Nex explains that they were unable to see the point in bringing recent bullying to the school’s attention given how much they had been bullied and harassed at school in the past year.

GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in today’s email, “It is haunting to hear Nex Benedict, in their own words, describe how school and state leaders failed, at every level of leadership, to keep them safe from bullying and harm. Less than 24 hours later, Nex would collapse and die.

“The release of the chilling 9-1-1 call by Nex’s mother, Sue Benedict, school surveillance video, and police body-cam footage of Nex in the emergency room recounting the brutal assault, all point to a clear and catastrophic cascade of failures from a school and state’s basic responsibility of safety and care for all young people.”

Ellis added, “Passing laws that ban students from bathrooms, refusing to act to prevent or stop bullying in all its forms, coupled with state leaders who perjure themselves by spreading lies and ostracizing LGBTQ students — this is a hostile, combustible environment that no student should ever have to endure in school.

Every young person, their friends and their families, need to know this is not normal and this cannot be acceptable. In Oklahoma and other states passing discriminatory laws against LGBTQ youth, we must all decide that now is the time to speak up and stand up to demand safety and acceptance for all students to live, learn and grow in peace.”

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

An 82-year-old grandmother affiliated with the local Republican Party spat at and attacked a group of veterans during a press conference in Tulsa last Friday, after they vocally protested against the enforced use of religion in public schools.

The incident, which was captured on camera, took place at a press conference called by State Superintendent Ryan Walters on the grounds of Tulsa Public Schools’ administration building.

Attendees were there to show support for E’Lena Ashley, a Tulsa school board member who had been criticized by parents and her fellow board members for praying during a high school graduation ceremony in May. Among those attending the event were members of the local chapter of extremist group Moms for Liberty, which endorsed Ashley’s campaign for school board last year.

Also in attendance were Roberta Pfanstiel and her husband Carl, who were there to support Walters’ call for ���religious freedom” in schools. Last month at a Tulsa School Board meeting he called for the promotion of Christianity and “Western heritage” in every classroom, including displaying the Ten Commandments.

At the event, the Pfanstiels were standing next to three activists from Veterans Defending Democracy, who were calling out what they saw as Walters’ hypocritical calls for “religious freedom” in schools.

During the event Pfanstiel, who lives in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, approached one of the activists, Bailee Tyler, who was sitting on the ground wearing a hat bearing the name of one of the activist groups she is affiliated with, Defense of Democracy.

“[Tyler] was on her knees, on the ground in front of me, and [Pfanstiel] came up from behind her and smacked her hat off of her head,” Erika Stormont, one of the three activists said in a podcast discussing the incident.

Much of the exchange was captured on video and posted online. In the clips Stormont, who was deployed to Afghanistan in 2010 before becoming one of the Army’s first female cavalry scouts in 2015, told Pfanstiel that she cannot touch her or anyone else, and that if she does it again they would press charges.

At one point during the press conference a Christian pastor began praying, and at this point protesters called on Walters to allow a rabbi to pray also if he really believed in religious freedom, chanting “let him pray.”

“And it’s as we’re chanting that, again unprovoked, this woman comes up from behind my friend who’s still on the ground and it looks to me like both of her hands are going for her neck, her shoulders area, and that she made contact,” Stormont said.

In Stormont’s video, posted on TikTok, Pfanstiel’s husband is seen restraining his wife by holding both her elbows.

“As I turned my camera back to her and said: ‘That’s twice, you cannot touch people in public.’ She spits in my face and her saliva lands on my cheek,” Stormont said.

At this point in the video, Stormont is heard telling Pfanstiel to spit again because she has captured it on camera. “I know that’s a very inciting thing to say [but] when I say that, every single part of my body at that point was in fight flight [mode].”

Stormont says she drew on the training she had received in therapy about how to deal with such situations. “I refocused back to the event, I refocused on why I was there, and I ‘gray rocked’ her, which is a term we use when we talk about recovering from narcissistic abuse. You cannot give them any of your energy at that point. And I knew at that point we were going to be pressing charges.”

Stormont filed a police report online and received a tracking number, but told VICE News that she has not heard back from the Tulsa Police Department. She called the department this week to update them with the identity of the person who spat at her, after she had been identified by online sleuths, but had to leave a voicemail. The Tulsa Police Department did not respond to VICE News’ requests for comment on the case.

In total about 100 people attended the event according to Stormont, with about one third of the attendees opposing Walters’ and Ashley’s claims that the school board is being religiously intolerant.

Alongside members of the local Moms for Liberty chapter were prominent members of the state and county Republican Party, including Oklahoma GOP chair Nathan Dahm and Tulsa County GOP chairwoman Ronda Vuillemont-Smith. Moms for Liberty did not respond to questions about Pfanstiel’s affiliation with the group.

Pfanstiel, who deleted her Facebook account this week after VICE News contacted her, has in the past appeared in pictures posted online showing herself and her family with Dahm. One photo was taken in front of the Oklahoma State Capitol on January 6, 2021, to oppose the outcome of the 2020 presidential elections.

Dahm didn’t respond to VICE News’ request for comment but Vuillemont-Smith said the party “is aware of the allegations of assault that took place” and “while the party was not the organizer of this press conference, we are monitoring the situation.”

“The Republican Party of Tulsa County honors all veterans who served, and support the freedom of speech,” Vuillemont-Smith added. “We do not condone nor endorse violence of any kind, nor do we support actions or free-speech that disrupt and impede on others' right to free speech.”

When asked if Pfanstiel is a member of the Tulsa GOP, the chairwoman said “all registered Republicans in Tulsa County are considered members of the Tulsa GOP.”