An autopsy report released by the Oklahoma’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner determined that Nex Benedict, a member of the 2SLGBTQ community, died by suicide.
I always say Turing was killed by the UK authorities, because he was forced to take medication to chemically castrate himself, because it was illegal to be gay. That changed his personality and drove him to suicide. But IMO it was clearly murder by the state.
When an LGBT person is driven to suicide, it is more often than not murder by the society and people surrounding that person. If in doubt, just look at the statistics, transgender people have way way higher suicide rate than any other demographic. That’s obviously not caused by normal untreated depression, it’s caused by persecution and lack of acceptance that make life a lot harder for them.
You are absolutely right. We really do need to stop treating suicide universally as cowardice or mental illness. Sometimes people kill themselves because it’s the only way out of a cruel world. We need to look at how society allows such cruelty.
This young person was killed by the students that beat them and the school administrators who enforced sexist and trasphobic policies against them. They may not have committed the fatal act, but absent their cruelty, Nex would still be alive today.
We see suicide weaponized by transphobes quite openly from groups like Kiwifarms. We shouldn’t play dumb about it, intense enough bullying should be viewed as intent to kill. In a just world, making a person miserable through harassment and assault, leading to their suicide, would land somewhere between manslaughter and murder.
Michelle Carter got convicted of manslaughter for convincing her boyfriend to kill himself. We need to expand that precident.
I always say Turing was killed by the UK authorities, because he was forced to take medication to chemically castrate himself, because it was illegal to be gay. That changed his personality and drove him to suicide. But IMO it was clearly murder by the state.
When an LGBT person is driven to suicide, it is more often than not murder by the society and people surrounding that person. If in doubt, just look at the statistics, transgender people have way way higher suicide rate than any other demographic. That’s obviously not caused by normal untreated depression, it’s caused by persecution and lack of acceptance that make life a lot harder for them.
You are absolutely right. We really do need to stop treating suicide universally as cowardice or mental illness. Sometimes people kill themselves because it’s the only way out of a cruel world. We need to look at how society allows such cruelty.
This young person was killed by the students that beat them and the school administrators who enforced sexist and trasphobic policies against them. They may not have committed the fatal act, but absent their cruelty, Nex would still be alive today.
We see suicide weaponized by transphobes quite openly from groups like Kiwifarms. We shouldn’t play dumb about it, intense enough bullying should be viewed as intent to kill. In a just world, making a person miserable through harassment and assault, leading to their suicide, would land somewhere between manslaughter and murder.
Michelle Carter got convicted of manslaughter for convincing her boyfriend to kill himself. We need to expand that precident.
Absolutely, it’s sad how this generally doesn’t click with most people. Bullying isn’t just bullying, it’s assault, and should be treated as a crime.