On Oct. 12, 1998, Judy Shepard’s life changed forever.
Shepard is the mother of Matthew Shepard, a 21-year old gay college student who was brutally murdered in a hate crime in Wyoming.
His name has become synonymous with antigay hate crime and has been featured in movies, TV shows, and throughout the legal and political world.
While Shepard, who will be appearing in Philadelphia later this month for an event with the Anti-Defamation League, said she believes the level of anti-LGBT violence has diminished in the 14 years since her son’s murder, overall animus toward gays hasn’t.
“The incidents are not as violent as they were in 1998. However, I believe there are more instances of verbal discrimination,” Shepard said.
President Obama signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act in October 2009. Shepard was in the audience as this happened
“We didn’t get any of that done with President Bush,” Shepard said. “He made it clear on where he stood on LGBT issues.”
Shepard will be the keynote speaker for the ADL’s Youth Leadership Conference Oct. 23 at the University of Pennsylvania. The conference is designed to help students understand and explore the importance of diversity and actions to take against bullying and prejudice.
“I’m just going to talk to the kids and give courage to be who they are,” she said. “Don’t let anyone else define who you are, be who you are.”
She wants the anti-LGBT rhetoric to stop, noting that when the messages stop, she believes fewer youth will turn to suicide.
“Kids see [the hate] and they feel like they are being rejected,” she said. “Stop talking about separating gay from straight. You can’t choose the color of your eyes or your sexual orientation. It is who you are.”
Shepard was attracted to working with ADL because its mission is similar to that of the Matthew Shepard Foundation.
“Their goals are in line with ours. They make a difference in working with all areas,” she said.
Shepard launched the foundation the year Matthew was killed to provide education, outreach and advocacy around diversity issues.
She hired three people originally to manage the foundation but, with its rapid growth, brought on a number of new staff. Its budget is less than $1 million but Shepard said the agency is in a good position right now to accomplish its aims.
“We never wanted to be huge. It is just not manageable,” she said.
What has resonated with Shepard the most since her son’s death is all of the feedback she has received from people touched by Matthew’s story, although she said it is impossible to pick just one impact that her son’s life and death has had.
Some of the public responses were included in Shepard’s book, “The Meaning of Matthew: My Son’s Murder in Laramie, and a World Transformed,” released two years ago.
She said she’s happy with the end result of the book, but that the timing of its completion was, in one way, unfortunate.
“I wish I could have included the passage of the bill,” she said.
The Matthew Shepard Act was signed into law a few months before the book published in mid-2010, but Shepard had already finished the writing by then. “But I don’t think I could have written the book any differently. I told the story that I wanted to.”
For more information about the ADL event, visit www.regions.adl.org/eastern-pa/.
For more information on The Matthew Shepard Foundation, visit www.matthewshepard.org/.