young people on matthewsplace.com, and by supporting productions of The Laramie Project and other performances and works of art that tell Matt's story and provoke dialogue. RC: What can parents do to protect LGBTQ children and young adults from discrimination and violence? J&DS: Most importantly of all, parents need to provide safe spaces for their kids (and their friends' kids, sometimes) to be open and authentic as their true selves. Too many parents throw their LGBTQ kids away, literally, and that needs to stop, and loving support needs to be provided for those young people independently of their families. Second, be involved in your kids' schools and activities, whether that's through the PTA, through coaching sports, or by communicating with their teachers and administrators and school districts. Finally: vote. Vote as if your kids' well-being depends on it because it very much does. RC: Tell our readers about your advocacy work on behalf of the LGBTQ community. J&DS: We have spoken at just under 1,000 schools, community organizations, workplaces, legislative hearings, and media outlets since the work began in earnest 20 years ago. We've been on Ellen and Oprah, but also a lot of Channel 5s and Channel 12s around the country. We've visited close to 30 countries and met with community members, government officials and civil rights advocates, a lot of them in places like Russia, Jamaica or El Salvador, where being LGBTQ is extremely challenging and even frightening. We've kind of lost count, but the Foundation staff figures we must have had at least three to four million people hear our message at some point along the way, if not more. It's a lot of time in airports, it's a lot of nights in hotels, but we have met the most extraordinary, brave, dedicated people in that time, and we are so humbled and grateful that we have played some small part in making their journeys more positive and hopeful. RC: Tell us about the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. J&DS: The Shepard-Byrd Act is literally the first piece of federal legislation that identified LGBTQ people for some kind of protection instead of some kind of inequality, so it sent a message 10 years ago when it passed that things might be about to change for the better. And they did. It has allowed charges to be brought and justice obtained in almost 50 cases where local authorities couldn't, or wouldn't, obtain an appropriate
"IT'S NEVER FAR FROM OUR MINDS HOW MUCH MATT WOULD HAVE APPRECIATED THE PROGRESS TO THIS POINT AND HOW FAR THERE IS STILL TO GO." - JUDY & DENNIS SHEPARD Photo provided by The Shepard Foundation
legal outcome in hate crimes against lesbian, gay, and trans people, as well as disabled people. It's literally changing lives for victims, survivors and their loved ones. It needs to be strengthened, and there needs to be better law enforcement transparency and reporting, and more states need to follow the federal lead in their own state laws, but it has provided a platform from which we can try to make those improvements. RC: How would you like people to remember your son Matthew? J&DS: It's important to us that people remember Matt as a whole person, someone who in a fair and just world would be alive today and doing all the normal things -- being in love, doing great work, not experiencing discrimination or violence, who knows, maybe being married, maybe having a kid or two. Certainly, we think he would have been doing work in support of human rights and he would be as upset and driven as we are to change this climate of hate and division we seem to be living in. He can't do those things because somewhere along the way, two young men who learned how to hate and hurt people fell through the cracks of our society. We want people to be inspired by what Matt could have been, to do some of the work we do and that Matt would be doing. RC: Is there anything else you'd like to share with Wire Magazine readers? J&DS: Every day of your lives you have a chance sometime during that day to stand up for love, acceptance and understanding, and against hate, discrimination and ignorance. Use those moments. Don't let them just pass you by. We each have a lot of power to inspire the people close to us to live better, more constructive lives, but a lot of the time we don't use it. Please use it. SPECIAL ISSUE #02 2019 | WIREMAG.COM 13