ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how Matthew Shepard’s legacy has shaped federal policy and LGBTQ rights in rural United States while highlighting the shortcomings of the politics of visibility when it comes to the protection of victims. Morrow traces the changes in the annual FBI hate crimes statistics from 1997 (the year prior to Shepard’s death) to the present and provides an analysis of the trends in the commission of these crimes over time. Analysis of hate crime data from “more rural states” such as Maine, Vermont, South Dakota, West Virginia, and Montana show that there has not been a decrease in the number of hate crimes reported since 1998, despite the attention Shepard’s murder received. Morrow found that the numbers of reported sexual orientation–motivated hate crimes in these states was elevated from 2006 to 2008, the years during which President Barak Obama was in office. The numbers rose again in 2010, after the federal Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was signed into law by President Obama and added protections based on gender identity and disability to the Hate Crimes Statistics Act of 1990.
