Every now and again it strikes me that Matthew Shepard and I are a few years apart in age. The same year he was being murdered for being gay, I was having my first experience with a girl. At the same time his family was mourning his loss, I was trying to figure out why I felt the need to ask my friend if she also remembered the events of a certain night. As I was wrestling in asking my friend if we could kiss again and trying to figure out why all my masturbation fantasies started to include women, Matthew Sheppard’s attackers were on trial for his murder.
Four years after Matthew died, I came out to my parents, terrified (but feeling like I shouldn’t be terrified) to tell them I was bi. The response from my parents was “okay.” It was...underwhelming...to say the least, but looking back, that easy acceptance was a gift that wasn’t being handed out nearly enough.
Matthew Shepard was living his life happily, and he died because of that, and it was 1998. You will not convince me he died for any other reason than his queerness. In 1998, I was 15. Even only knowing in a nebulous way that I was queer, I knew there was something about the Matthew Shepard case that hit me harder.
I never knew Matthew Shepard, but I miss who he could have been. I imagine his family misses him every day still and misses who he could have been. I wish things could have been different. I wish we could have been queers of the same generation just living our lives.
