This Is Not About Nex Benedict

ABSTRACT

Drawing connections between the social and political antagonisms of anti-trans violence, racism, and colonialism, this intimate and reflective piece considers the impact that the death of Nex Benedict has had on the author as well as on some of the author’s patients. Nex’s death and the hostile context in which they died both sparked and evoked multiple mournings, anxieties, and grief processes, illustrated here through clinical vignette and personal disclosure and grounded in psychoanalytic theory.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflicts of interest are reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Molly Merson

Molly Merson, LMFT (they/she), is a consultant, supervisor, psychotherapist and psychoanalytic candidate in full-time independent practice, licensed in California and New York and residing in Ohlone unceded territory. They offer interdisciplinary courses for clinicians on the intersections of psychoanalysis and race, queerness, class, and de/coloniality. They are President of Section IX, Psychoanalysis for Social Responsibility, a section of Division 39 of the APA, and co-chair of the 2025 Division 39 Spring Meeting. Molly has authored The Whiteness Taboo: Interrogating Whiteness in Psychoanalysis in Psychoanalytic Dialogues, among other articles, including a forthcoming chapter in The Queerness of Psychoanalysis: From Freud and Lacan to Laplanche and Beyond, due out later this year.