So it happens again – I blog once a year about Matthew Shepard.
Gay rights in America seem to be receding, especially in Wyoming, Mathew Shepard’s home state. The UW office that supports the LGBTQIA+ community vanished in 2024, thanks to a Wyoming legislature hostile to diversity. This makes giving to UW rather difficult.
I am now supporting Laramie Pride as an alternative – in the hopes that their efforts spillover, helping the UW gay community in its current form.
Thus I digress from my primary goal of this post every single year – a reflection of my thoughts about Matthew Shepard and what he means to me.
Twenty-seven years is a long time. I have spilled a lot of (virtual) ink about what Matthew means to me. I can only be repetitive at this point. The points I’ve made in years past remain salient and relevant. As I observed last year, “while I can rearrange the words, the core emotions that exist within me regarding Matthew Shepard, his murder, and the consequences thereof on me have not really change.”
In September I visited Cambodia – spending a week hanging out in Phnom Penh, its capital city. Prior to landing there, I really knew nothing about its history. I could have made some educated guesses about the broad strokes of its history, but I remained virtually 100% ignorant about its modern history.
To correct this, I signed up for a tour of the Killing Fields and of the S-21 interrogation center. HOLY WOW UGH SHIT. I spent a mere four hours on this tour. I was depressed the rest of the day. What humans can do to other humans is so incredibly awful – inhumane to be blunt.
There are some uncomfortable similarities between the rule of the Khmer Rouge and the Nazis. And, uh, the early days of, uh, thug rule in the USA.
I worry that the current trends will continue. I worry that all of the hope I experienced and embodied following Matthew Shepard’s murder will be lost.
I would have to re-read the 20 plus years of musings about Matthew Shepard to see if I ever really talked about hope in light of Matthew Shepard. Maybe I missed it? Maybe I never really highlighted it – but in the darkest moments following his murder, it was the community coming together to memorialize and remember Matthew where I found hope and the will to become a better person.
Matthew Shepard means more than ever to me.
RIP.
*December 1, 1976; †October 12, 1998
For historical reference, see 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, or any of the many times he’s been mentioned on my blog via a search for Matthew Shepard.
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