Pride in a Small Town: A Musing on Visibility

[Medusa]

Originally Posted by Greyson

Thank you for sharing a piece of LGBTQ history with us. I think it takes a heck of more huevos to live openly in the smaller rural towns. We do have hate crimes in the big city but also there is greater visibility and level of acceptance.

As for the pictures, where are they? I got nada.

We hid the pictures from you, Greyson

I was talking with Jack just a few weeks back about hate crimes and wondering if there was any info about the number of hate crimes in small towns versus the number of hate crimes in larger cities.

When I think of the places where most of the homophobia-related hate crimes have occured (not that any hate crime has greater value than another, but just for this discussions sake, focusing on these), I think about Matthew Shepherd in Laramie, Wyoming. I think about Brandon Teena in Humboldt, Nebraska. I think about Harvey Milk in San Francisco. I think about Rebecca Wight in Pennsylvania. I think about Scott Amedure in Michigan. I think about Barry Winchelle in Ft. Campbell, Kentucky.

When I think of just those few homophiobia-related hate crimes and all of the others in a long list of (too) many, I get a mental map in my head that looks pretty sporadic. (Especially when I think of the homophobic hate crimes that have happened in London, Ireland, Jamaica, etc.

I'd love to do some more research on it or perhaps have a larger discussion about it.