After 25 Years, Matthew Shepard’s Legacy Still Lives
01.11.2023 - 17:33
/ thegavoice.com
Earlier this month marked the 25th anniversary of the death of Matthew Shepard. On October 6, 1998, Shepard was beaten, tortured and left to die, bound to a fence in a remote Wyoming field, not far from the small town of Laramie. He was found and taken to a hospital where he died from his wounds six days later.
Suspects Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson were arrested shortly after. They were charged, tried and convicted of first-degree murder. Both received two consecutive life sentences.
The case received national attention. It also proved a turning point for the LGBTQ+ rights movement once the public learned that Shepard was gay, and that his assailants were motivated by antigay hatred. The case energized the LGBTQ+ movement, assisted by Shepard’s parents, Judy and Dennis Shepard, who became powerful spokespeople against hate crimes. This eventually led to the passage of the nation’s first federal legislation for hate crimes in 2009.
The movement was also propelled by another powerful voice making its way through the country’s cultural zeitgeist, a play called “The Laramie Project,” created by members of the Tectonic Theater Project, a New York-based theater collective.
In the aftermath of Shepard’s death, LGBTQ+ communities nationwide began to stand up in solidarity, mourning and action. Likewise, the members of Tectonic felt called to action. Led by the company’s head writers, Moisés Kaufman and Leigh Fondakowski, a total of ten members of Tectonic made the journey to Laramie, Wyoming to interview residents.
They were initially concerned that the townspeople would be skittish, given the amount of scrutiny by the national media they’d endured in the wake of the murder. However, once people learned that the Tectonic