Unfinished Lives

Remembering LGBT Hate Crime Victims

Ten Years Later: Remembering Matthew Shepard

 

Matthew Wayne Shepard
December 1, 1976 — October 12, 1998

 

Sunday, October 12 marks the tenth anniversary of Matthew Shepard’s death. In honor of this important day, I offer an excerpt of a chapter in my forthcoming book, Unfinished Lives: Reviving the Memories of LGBT Hate Crimes Murder Victims. The chapter is entitled, “The Second Death of Matthew Shepard.”

 

~ ~ ~

 

Another Mother’s Day came and went. Another Father’s Day, too. Matt Shepard’s chair is empty in the Shepard home in Casper, Wyoming: no card from him, or roses for his mom; no tie or set of slippers for his dad–for over ten years. His parents, Judy and Dennis Shepard, and his younger brother, Logan, miss him everyday.

At the center of advocacy for LGBT freedom remains the enigmatic memory of the young, blond man trussed to a buck fence in Laramie, Wyoming. He has become the symbol for the hurts and hopes of lesbians, gay men, bisexual people, and transgender folk, both here and abroad. Curiosity or outrage at what happened to him usually begins the change in heart and attitude about hate crimes for the millions who hear his story. That alone is reason enough to tell and retell Matt’s story, and the stories of so many other LGBT people who have died so brutally. But are we any closer to understanding the real person, or is that person locked away behind the closed door of a decade of myth-making and amnesia? For most Americans, other than his family and his closest friends, the only way we come to know him is through the veil of the savagery that cut his life short. He suffered the dying, but we deal with the effects of his death.

There may be no way to recover who Matt Shepard was: the complicated young man who comes to life when his mother talks about his passionate opinions, his flashing temper, his generosity to a fault, his love of politics, his hopes of becoming a human rights advocate… and, we must add, his disturbing naïveté. The person he might have been is long gone. Like Beth Loffreda says, what we have left is the “whiplash” of his memory, haunting Laramie and haunting us, luring and stinging the conscience of our violent American society. Forgetfulness seems not to work. We can neither forget him, nor should we. In telling and retelling how his life ended lies the hope that a grace of transformation may seize us. Justice may yet be done, and hatred may change gradually into acceptance: of LGBT people by others and by themselves, of those who strike out against persons they fear and do not understand, and ultimately, of the need to grant each other room to live and let live.

Rest in peace, brother. We who survive you cannot, yet. We have much work to do.

Stephen V. Sprinkle
Director
The Unfinished Lives Project

October 8, 2008 - Posted by | Anglo Americans, Book excerpts, gay men, Remembrances, Wyoming | , , ,

2 Comments

  1. […] attention many times before.  The Topeka, Kansas church gained infamy by picketing the funeral of Matthew Shepard in Casper, WY, and then attempting to build a monument in a public park there declaring […]

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  2. […] attention many times before.  The Topeka, Kansas church gained infamy by picketing the funeral of Matthew Shepard in Casper, WY, and then attempting to build a monument in a public park there declaring Shepard’s […]

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