The death of 16-year-old Nex Benedict in the wake of a fight at an Owasso, Oklahoma, high school has drawn widespread attention after reports that the teen was long bullied for their gender identity, which friends have described as “gender expansive.”

But what does gender expansive mean? According to national LGBTQ+ advocacy group PFLAG, it’s an umbrella term for individuals who don’t align with traditional gender categories, or who expand ideas of gender expression or identity.

“It might be used because someone has identities outside of what’s socially accepted,” said Mackenzie Harte, PFLAG’s manager of learning and inclusion, adding that the term is one they’ve increasingly heard used by parents and educators regarding to youth. “It’s where someone is not conforming to social ideas of what gender should be.”

The term has been around since at least 2012, when LGBTQ+ advocacy organization Human Rights Campaign surveyed more than 10,000 lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer youth across the United States. The term “gender-expansive” emerged from the report to classify youth who didn’t identify with traditional gender roles but were otherwise not confined to one gender narrative or experience.

“This term allows us to talk about youth who don’t meet our ‘traditional’ understandings of gender without putting their identity in a box,” the report read. 

Gender expansive is not synonymous with nonbinary, PFLAG notes; even cisgender individuals can embrace the term. Instead, it’s another way of saying gender non-conforming — the more preferred term, according to the group.

“While some parents and allies use the term, gender non-conforming (GNC) is the preferred term by the LGBTQ+ community,” the group says as part of a glossary definition on PFLAG’s website. “It is important to use the term preferred by an individual with whom you are interacting.”

What happened to Nex Benedict?

Nex, a 16-year-old who loved reading, art, and playing Minecraft, was hurt during a fight that erupted in an Owasso High School bathroom on Feb. 7.

That afternoon, officers responded to a local hospital, where Sue Benedict, Nex’s mother, reported the assault and urged police to follow up with school administrators. Nex was later discharged, but the following day Benedict called 911 to report that Nex was having medical issues, including shallow breathing.

According to police, she said Nex had hit their head on the bathroom floor during the altercation. Emergency crews performed CPR before Nex was taken to a Tulsa hospital and pronounced dead.

Police said on Wednesday that an autopsy determined Nex did not die as a result of trauma. But medical examiners have yet to disclose their complete findings.

Oklahoma youth long endured bullying

Family members have said that Nex used the pronouns they/them, and interviews indicate friends believe Nex was still exploring their gender identity at the time of their death.

Executive director Nicole McAfee of Freedom Oklahoma, a group advocating to make the state safer for people of all genders and sexualities, said friends of Nex described them as gender expansive, using they/them pronouns with some people and he/him pronouns with those closest to him.

While it remains unclear whether the altercation involved Nex’s gender identity, the friends said other students had bullied Nex for their gender identity “for well over a year,” McAfee said.

More young adults identifying as nonbinary or transgender

Results of a Pew Research Center survey released in June 2022 showed a record high 5% of young adults identify as transgender or nonbinary. About 1.5% of the U.S. adult population identifies as such, the survey found, and more Americans report knowing someone who is transgender compared to five years ago.

LGBTQ+ advocates attribute the rise to more accurate media representation, the growing visibility of transgender and nonbinary people on social media platforms and the internet, and a broadening of terminology and social acceptance offering previously unavailable avenues for self-expression.

The survey also found growing awareness of terms such as nonbinary and gender fluid, especially among young adults. Both terms refer to individuals who don’t identify as strictly male or female.

The survey was devised by Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan think tank based in Washington, D.C., as part of efforts to better understand the experiences of transgender and nonbinary individuals in a political and social climate that has put gender identity in the spotlight — particularly among Republican candidates looking to sway voters as the 2024 election approaches.

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‘Please do not judge us as Nex was judged’

Jordan Korphage, the school district’s director of communications, has not responded to inquiries about whether the school had gotten prior bullying reports involving Nex or whether the school had any support groups for students of various gender and sexual identities.

But relatives confirmed this week that the family plans to conduct an independent investigation, pleading with officials to “hold those responsible to account and to ensure it never happens again.”

On the GoFundMe page she launched to raise money for funeral expenses, Sue Benedict expressed gratitude for an outpouring of financial and emotional support and apologized for not using Nex’s chosen name in her original post.

“As parents, we were still learning the correct forms,” Benedict wrote. “Please do not judge us as Nex was judged, please do not bully us for our ignorance on the subject. Nex gave us that respect and we are sorry in our grief that we overlooked them. I lost my child, the headstone will have the correct name of their choice.”

Contributing: Christopher Cann, USA TODAY; Molly Young, The Oklahoman