Shepard, Judy

From Homemaker to Activist

Born Judy Peck in Glenrock, Wyoming, in 1952, Shepard was the daughter of the town postmaster and a post office senior clerk. While a student at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, she met Dennis Shepard. The young woman who planned to be [Page 1342]a teacher and the oil rigger married and moved to Casper, Wyoming, where Dennis had a job with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Matthew, the first of two sons, was born to the Shepards in 1976. Seventeen years later, Dennis Shepard's work as a safety engineer for Aramco took the family to Saudi Arabia. Shepard and her husband were still in Saudi Arabia five years later when the call came with the news that Matthew had been beaten, tied to a fence, and left for dead near Laramie. Less than a week later, Matt was dead, and Shepard's transformation from quiet homemaker to gay rights activist had begun.

Matthew Shepard was not the first victim of anti-gay violence, but the combination of his youth, the brutality of his murder, and the ordinariness of his family galvanized public sentiment. Memorials were held across the country, and contributions poured in to help cover medical costs. The Shepards used the contributions as seed money for the Matthew Shepard Foundation. Shepard began making speeches, calling for hate crime legislation to be extended to include sexual orientation. Soon the self-described introvert was making as many as 50 speeches a year, eventually racking up 250,000 frequent-flier miles annually as she spoke to crowds about her son's death and his life, as well as about the need for social acceptance and legal protection for gays and lesbians.

Five times Congress approved a bill providing for that protection, and each time the proposed legislation was defeated. After a decade as a crusader, Shepard published her memoir, The Meaning of Matthew, in September 2009. In the book, Shepard recounted in straightforward fashion her family's life, the unimaginable horror of Matt's murder, and her years of activism. On October 22, 2009, Congress passed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which extended hate-crime status to include a victim's actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation or identity, or disability. President Barack Obama signed the bill into law on October 28, 2009.