Matthew Shepard 25 years later- We cannot forget what his death meant

We must never forget that the hatred and bigotry that led to his murder still exists, and not only in places like Laramie, Wyoming

It’s an universal law-- intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas truly profound education breeds humility.

• Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

I was living in Houston when James Byrd, Jr. was dragged behind a Ford truck for three miles on an asphalt road on June 7, 1998, outside the east Texas town of Jasper. His misfortune was being Black and crossing paths with three good ol’ boys, two of them avowed White Nationalists. Byrd, a vacuum cleaner salesman, posed no threat to anyone, yet he was murdered for the color of his skin.

The gruesome details of Byrd’s murder testify to the toxic power of White supremacy- hatred and bigotry supercharged by ignorance and arrogance.

Sadly, east Texas was and remains a place where the corrosive admixture of racism, hatred, and bigotry can lead to tragic outcomes. Byrd was in the wrong place at the wrong time and accepted a ride from someone he felt he could trust. A gentle soul, he was not prone to defaulting to suspicion. He assumed the best of people, an assumption that would horrifically cost him his life.

Four months later, America would again be shocked by a brutal hate crime, this one perpetrated against a gay man.

Matthew Shepard was by all accounts also a gentle soul, a young gay man in a place that hated and feared those who weren’t White Conservative Christian cisgender heterosexuals. Laramie, WY, wasn’t then and isn’t now a place known for tolerance and acceptance, though it has grown and changed over the past 25 years.

There was no reason for Matthew Shepard to have been murdered that night. There was certainly no cause for his assailants to leave him to die in the brutal manner they did. I’ll spare my reader the details; you can look them up if you choose, but the circumstances of Shepard’s death, while horrific, are not the critical part of the equation.

Twenty-five years after that terrible night, what's important now is that his passing has brought about change. His death has helped people see that hatred, bigotry, and homophobia can, and sometimes do, have deadly consequences. In death, Matthew Shepard has shown the corrosiveness of hate and the healing power of love and acceptance.

Hate is a learned behavior. It can also be unlearned.

In college, I was a resident assistant in a dorm. One of the residents on my floor was a young gay man who was gay and made no effort to be anything but who he was. This was 40 years ago when much of the LGBTQ community still felt it was safer to blend in with the heterosexual community than to live their truth. David didn’t feel bound by such narrow confines, so he lived and dressed in a way that reflected his identity. I admired him for that, but I also felt concerned for the risks he took.

One Saturday night, he went clubbing in downtown Minneapolis, where a group of homophobes attacked him. David returned with bruises, cuts, and torn clothes. He was hurt and disappointed, but his spirit was undaunted. I felt for him, but I could do nothing short of accompanying him with a baseball on his next foray into downtown Minneapolis.

I was naïve enough to believe that by the time we entered the 21st century, America would be over the petty fear, hatred, and homophobia. I honestly thought that, as a country, we’d evolve past petty hatred and bigotry to accept people for who they are. You know, something about accepting others for the content of their character instead of hating them for the color of their skin or who they love.

Alas, my optimism far outstripped reality. It feels like younger generations are far more accepting of the LGBTQ community, but my generation is still twisted into knots by its bigotry and homophobia. Worse, they’ve added an obsession with transgender people entirely out of proportion with the <1% of the population they represent.

When the conversation turns to who may use what public restrooms or locker rooms, you know we haven’t come a long way, baby. It feels like we’ve taken a few steps back.

There are only two genders- male and female. Trust the science.

• Rep. Marjorie Trailer Green (R-GA)

Trust the science? That’s laughable coming from a woman who only trusts science when it underscores her self-serving political agenda. She knows as much about gender and gender transition issues as I do about the advanced concepts of building a hand-held thermonuclear weapon.

And she’s not overwhelmingly adored by her constituents:

Around 500 bills dealing with some aspect of transgender existence have been introduced into state legislatures this year, and towards what end? The transgender cohort is slightly less than 1% of the American population; what possible threat could they pose to the remaining 99%?

The answer, of course, is none, but it’s not about a perceived threat. Transgender people represent an easily demonized demographic. They have no representation and even less political clout. There’s no respected, powerful voice to stand up for them and speak on their behalf, so they’re easily overlooked- especially since most Americans don’t understand transgender people. Worse, they have no genuine desire to try to understand them. Because they lack education about what a transgender person is, it’s easy to dehumanize them and reduce them to an ugly, unpalatable concept.

As Solzhenitsyn said, intolerance is the product of an inadequate education. You don’t have to be an expert to understand and accept someone for who they are; you only have to know enough to recognize and acknowledge their humanity.

There’s a genuine and transparent Right-wing plan to take over America and rid it of its more democratic features. Succeeding in this plan depends on maintaining an inadequate level of education among Conservative voters. It’s easier to manipulate ignorant people, who can be easily frightened and propagandized into getting behind a despot promising peace, stability, and order.

A large part of that peace, stability, and order is focusing the ire of the masses against targets who lack the resources and/or influence to be able to fight back. The most obvious targets, of course, are those who aren’t White Conservative Christian cisgender heterosexuals.

It doesn’t have to be this way, though. Hatred and bigotry aren’t inevitable. No one exits the womb hating anyone based on the color of their skin, who they love, or any other artificial barrier. People are taught to hate by people who were themselves taught to hate by people who…well, you get the idea. Hatred and bigotry are legacies passed from generation to generation. White Christian Conservative cisgender heterosexual males are taught that they are the Chosen Ones, the ones whom God has blessed more than others. No one stops to ask what this belief is based on; it’s merely accepted as a cultural legacy and internalized.

Since 1998, the Matthew Shepard Foundation has worked to change hearts and minds. It’s an effort to erase hate by countering Solzhenitsyn’s assertion that “intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education.”

Education is always the most effective tool for checking intolerance, hatred, and bigotry…because it can lead to acceptance, tolerance, and understanding.

The Matthew Shepard Foundation’s mission is to amplify the story of Matthew Shepard to inspire individuals, organizations and communities to embrace the dignity and equality of all people. Our work is an extension of Matt’s passion to foster a more caring and just world. We share his story and embody his vigor for civil rights to change the hearts and minds of others to accept everyone as they are.

One of the foundation’s most well-known legacy programs is The Laramie Project.

After Matthew’s murder in 1998, members of the Tectonic Theater Project in New York City traveled to Laramie, Wyoming, to interview residents about how the attack on Matt had affected the town. These transcripts were transformed into the play The Laramie Project, which tells the stories of real people who lived at the epicenter of one of the nation’s most heinous anti-gay hate crimes.

The Laramie Project is one of the most frequently performed plays in America, as its messages still resonate with audiences today. The Matthew Shepard Foundation supports dozens of productions of The Laramie Project and its epilogue The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later every year across the country. It’s the goal of the Matthew Shepard Foundation to create an environment where people are afforded an opportunity to discuss the play and its messages, the hate they encounter in their own lives, and how they can work collectively to build a more understanding and compassionate community.

Matthew Shepard may have been murdered 25 years ago today, but his family and the foundation they created have worked hard to eliminate the sort of hate that led to his tragic death. It can be arduous work, and it’s probably unfair to expect one foundation to make a sizable dent, but changing the world begins with one changed heart and mind.

No one should face harassment, persecution, or death because of who they are, who they love, or anything else about what makes them unique, memorable, and human. We should be celebrating Matthew Shepard for what he accomplished in life, not for what his murder has led to…but the good news is that his death hasn’t been for naught.

When you have a moment today, take some time to think about your LGBTQ friends and loved ones. We should be grateful they live in a safer and more accepting world, but that shouldn’t be taken to mean that they are safe or that they no longer face hatred and bigotry. It’s still not easy or safe to be LGBTQ.

Thanks to the Matthew Shepard Foundation and other groups with similar missions, efforts to teach tolerance and acceptance and to change hearts and minds have experienced varying degrees of success. Society is more accepting and tolerant than it was when I was in college, but there’s still a lot of work to be done.

Let’s hope that 25 years from now, the conversation will have changed significantly for the better. America deserves it, as do the Shepard and Byrd families.

(All of my posts are now public. Any reader financial support will be considered pledges- support that’s greatly appreciated but not required to get to all of my work. I’ll trust my readers to determine if my work is worthy of their financial support and at what level. To those who do offer their support, thank you. It means more than you know.)