Operation **Reclaim** Loveland

Matthew- I Wish I Could Say More Has Changed

October 1998

I had really grown to love Wyoming. My spirit needed the wide open spaces, and all of the fresh air. No matter how tense things had become in my marriage (already-WTF), I was free to be me.

I didn’t have to pretend I wasn’t bisexual. I didn’t have to pretend I wasn’t a witch. I didn’t even have to pretend to be neurotypical. I loved living my identity out loud.

I was witty and flirty and so incredibly full of life.

(I’m having the hardest time typing this, because I cannot regain my composure. I can’t stop crying.)

The brutal murder of Matthew Shepard shook the whole state of Wyoming. Matthew had been killed in the liberal center of the state where the University of Wyoming is situated in Laramie.

Pinedale, on the other hand, was far more conservative.

There became a very public discussion of what it means to “live and let live,” a core Wyoming ideology. As the details of his brutalization unraveled, Wyomingites stepped forward very vocally to identify themselves as either safe/ally/lgbtqia+ member, or a bigot. It was the conversation at the grocery store, at the Maverick gas station, and all of the coffee counters.

There weren’t nearly as many allies and community members as I’d hoped. It really did feel like the world was pitted against us, as I saw those I expected to be allies become silent and those who were very comfortable with hate fill the airways.

Strangely, the bigots sorted themselves into two categories. There were plenty who were happy to endorse the behaviors of the two men who took Matthew’s life. It was so sobering to hear out loud how much hatred existed for people like me, in the people around me.

Another class of bigots emerged that believed that Matthew’s sexual orientation was immoral, and wrong, but that it was none of their business. They still claimed to disagreed with Matthew’s existence, but were adamant that he shouldn’t have been a target because of it.

This was also the SCRIPT that many “allies” took, to avoid becoming targets themselves.

They felt that let them off the hook.

They felt like the hatred that they still fed somehow hadn’t contributed. This is how they washed their hands of it. I watched as the “live and let live,” SCRIPT abolished them all, while they still made gay jokes, while they still said how disgusting we were. They also listed all kinds of ill fates that they thought were suitable for us gays, just not a violent death.

And they felt that made them good people. And they performed that to me out loud.

Marriage is Human Trafficking.
I invite you to prove me wrong, but you have to read it first!

I’m not a closeted person. My mental health requires my authenticity. Admittedly, my authenticity became considerably quieter, all while my resolve set to still identify openly as bisexual.

In case I had missed the significance, many people were happy to point it out to me. The Amish-ishes, The Old Witch, anybody who knew I was bi felt the need to tell me how unsafe I was.

I was so appalled at all of the “good people” I knew who were ok with a world where gay people are hunted for sport, and who refused or failed to stand openly against it.

How could a good person think anybody deserved what happened to Matthew? How could any good person stay quiet while people made excuses for what his murders did to him? I realized I didn’t know very many good people.

I felt much more alone.

No matter how alone I have felt, or will ever feel, I will never feel as alone as Matthew felt on that fencepost.

I knew that hiding would never be an option for me. I knew that I would have to change the world or die trying. I knew that I would have to speak out when the silence is deafening. I knew I would have to be visible, vocal, and careful. I radically accepted that doing so could get me killed, but it was very clear that the battle still had to be fought.

Matthew should still be alive.

Those men felt emboldened by their culture, and I’m sure they never dreamed they would have any consequences. It’s not just a disregard for human life, it’s the belief that some people aren’t human.

There are people like me who believe that we are all equal, who can’t imagine the color of your skin, your gender, your sexual orientation, your place of birth, your socioeconomic class or any other variable that makes you worth more or less than anybody else.

There are also people who believe that their lives matter more, and that the lives of others are somehow more disposable. They enjoy the suffering of those they see as lesser than themselves. They will always be wrong.

It shouldn’t come as any surprise that within the last year, as the Proud Boys geared up to launch Project 2025 YouTube has become saturated with MAGA claims that “everything we were ever told about Matthew Shepard is a Lie.”

Liberty University of God Forbid fame made this contribution

There is so much more to the impact this made on my life, and I’m fighting the urge to tie all of the pieces together, because we will get there when we get there.

I will say this. My heart still hurts for Matthew, his parents, his family, his friends, and every single person this shook. We deserve so much more than this, and now, the Rainbow Resource Center at the University of Wyoming which came from this grief as a place of safety and community, has been wiped out in the DEI purge.

I will never stop fighting.

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