I've been to Laramie, Wyoming many times. Why Matthew Shepard didn't go to school some place more sympatico troubles me.

I've spent time in jail in Laramie, Wyoming. It's so homophobic there, I didn't even get raped! What the hell??

Condolences and now please tell the story?

I'm going to don my blue Mystique skin for a second and say: Because he shouldn't have to.

Or maybe he couldn't.

The problem was not Mr. Shepard. The problem is the astounding hatred of gays in our country. Yes, things might have been easier for him if he moved to Castro Street...

Yeah, I think a story is in order at this point.

Nope. Not in the mood to recount that horrible episode in my life. Suffice it to say that when Laramie became infamous a few years later for a particular reason, I was none too surprised.

GC, I know what it is to be the first one over the hill. It eats you up. It gives you perma-anger. I was the first woman in 25 years in my dept. at the Univ. of WI to make tenure and the first woman not married to another faculty member in that department to ever get tenure. When we finally meet in person, I'll let you look at the scars from the knife wounds in my back.

Sure, it's great to educate people and to break barriers. In the Best of All Possible Worlds, it wouldn't cause depression or alienation or, in Matthew's case, murder. Every bleeping day he got figurative knife wounds and for what? College shouldn't be like that.

I'm sorry, GC. What you say is theoretically true. In practice, it just isn't worth it. Not when there are so many alternatives to the U of Wyoming.

In Laramie, you do figure you'll get killed. It's a very rough place in a very rough state.

Should Matthew Shepard have figured that? Yeah, just as I figure that women can't walk safely alone at night. Doesn't make it right or the victim's fault but it's reality.