Whenever Oklahoma teenager Nex Benedict was bullied at school for being transgender, their mother Sue Benedict would encourage the 16-year-old to rise above their tormentors.

“I said ‘you’ve got to be strong and look the other way, because these people don’t know who you are’,” Ms Benedict told The Independent in a phone interview.

“I didn’t know how bad it had gotten.”

The bullying had started in earnest at the beginning of the 2023 school year, a few months after Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt signed a bill that required public school students to use bathrooms that matched the sex listed on their birth certificates.

A few weeks ago, on 7 February, the bullying allegedly erupted in violence when Nex suffered severe head injuries during a “physical altercation” at Owasso High School, according to the Owasso Police Department.