LGBT Identity. Persecuted in very different ways, two famous gay men are featured in current films that consider some of the complexities of being a gender-preference minority in modern culture. One was a World War II hero who helped crack a Nazi code, contributing to important victories in the global conflict at middle of the 20th century, while the other remains a potent symbol of the dangers of homophobia present in America at the turn of the 21st century. Both men came to early ends to their promising young lives because of fear and prejudice against those who are different from accepted social norms.
Matt Shepherd and LGBT Identity
It has been over a decade since the brutal hate-crime that took the life of Matt Shepherd in Laramie, Wyoming. Now his friends add their views and memories of the complex and very human individual who was killed by hate, in a film that is arriving in theaters across the country. Just as the debate over same-sex marriage and alternative relationships heats up on the way to the Supreme Court this year, people will get to learn more about the real Matt Shepherd and the intolerance that led to his death.
Killed simply for being himself and being open about his identity, Shepherd has become something of a martyred icon to many in the LGBT rights movement and their allies. For his friends and family, though, he will always be much more than just the tragic story of a life that was ended far too soon. He will remain a part of their memories as a real human being who grew and changed with time.
In Matt Shepherd was a Friend of Mine, his friends recall the man they knew, who was not the same as the one-dimensional mythic story that he has come to embody in history. Loved ones have spoken highly of the presentation of the young man as he really was, a complex human being, rather than just as an icon of the dangers of homophobia.
Exonerating Alan Turing
Among the 49,000 men convicted under Britain’s harsh “indecency” laws that were used to prosecute gay men in the post-war years, one has become much more famous recently. Alan Turing was a British mathematician who worked with the Allied war effort in helping to unwind the Nazi code known as “Enigma.” Despite his history of honorable service in the war effort, Turing was convicted in 1952 under England’s homophobic laws. He chose chemical castration over imprisonment, and then ended his life two years later, in 1954.
In response to growing publicity over Turing’s case, Queen Elizabeth officially pardoned him and apologized on behalf of the British government in 2013. Actors and producers of the film The Imitation Game about Turing’s life now call on the British government to pardon the remaining men who were prosecuted under the nation’s strict laws of the 1950s. The other 49,000 individuals who were charged, convicted, and had their lives overturned and destroyed in many cases, remain unaffected by the actions in Turing’s celebrated case.
More Pardons, More Apologies Due from British Government
Following a screening of The Imitation Game in London, British actor and comedian Stephen Fry, called for overturning the convictions for the other thousands of victims of the persecution. Actor Benedict Cumberbatch portrays Turing in the movie and has joined in the calls for some degree of justice for the men whose lives were turned upside down. Some 15,000 of the men who received the unjust prosecution are still alive.
As laws evolve toward a growing acceptance of same-sex partnerships in society, injustices of the past must still be revisited so as to avoid repeating similar horrors. While events of post-war years in Britain seem very far away and of little concern to modern society, the death of Matt Shepherd in modern America indicates that deep prejudices remain. Only education about the real connections that all people share, along with persistent love, can continue to wear down the forces of hatred and exclusion that were the official policy for many decades in America, Britain and elsewhere.