have been deemed newsworthy:

• On January 17 Kevin Tryals and Laaron Morris of Galveston TX. were

  found in a burning car on a dead-end road outside of city limits. Both bodies were

  severely burned. The medical examiner’s office ruled that both men were dead before the

  car was ignited, and that both men died from multiple gunshot wounds. Police have ruled

  out robbery and are treating the murders as anti-gay violence.

• On February 20 the burned remains of Billy Jack Gaither, 39, a

  factory worker were discovered in Sylacauga, a small town in Alabama. He had been beaten

  to near death (or near death) with an ax handle and thrown onto a stack of tires and a set

  afire. His attacks, 21-year-old Charles Butler and 25-year-old Steven Mullins, claim he

  made a pass at them.

• On March 1, the severed head of Henry Edward Northington, 39, was

  found on a pathway to a park known as a gay men’s cruising spot outside of Alexandria,

  Virginia. Northington was homeless and gay. No one has been arrested.

• On March 12, in Los Angeles, Juan Chavez, 34, pleaded guilty of

  murdering five gay men by luring them to their homes supposedly for sex and then robbed

  and strangled them. He also was accused of taking the victims’ cars after killing them. He

  claimed he committed the murders to stop the spread of AIDS.

• On March 15the body of Michael Barber, 56, was discovered in his

  apartment in Fort Lauderdale, FL. encased in a zippered plastic bag. He had died of

  multiple stab wounds. Barber, an ex-Marine worked as a gardener in the area. Six months

  ago Charles Squires, 64, of nearby Wilton Manors, Fl. was found stabbed to death and

  wrapped in plastic inside his home. Police are treating both as anti-gay crimes.

• On March 19, Bradley Davis, 24, of San Francisco, was found bleeding

  and semi-conscious between two parked cars at 12:15 a.m. near 18th and Castro streets by

  police officers who were called to the scene. Officers arrested three suspects – Ban

  Doc Im, 21; Henry Sai Kwong, 19; Thang Cao Truong, 18 – who were seen by witnesses

  attacking Davis after standing on Castro shouting anti-gay and anti-African American

  epithets.

There is no doubt that since the Shepard murder anti-gay violence

has been deemed more newsworthy. While some analysts are claiming that violence against

gay, lesbian, and transgendered people are raising. The Triangle Foundation, a gay-rights

advocacy groups in Detroit documented two Michigan anti-gay murders in 1997, and six in

1998; by March of 1999 they were investigating five. But the reality is that they have

always been an enormous number of murders, beating, attacks, and harassments: what has

changed is both the rate of reporting and the attention of the media. Generally speaking

queer commentators and activists see this as a positive trend it seems to me that

increased visibility for homophobic violence is only a first, albeit important, but rather

small step. The enormous coverage given to the Shepard murder – and will we see much

more once the trail starts – is, in itself, a study of what can go wrong. It is clear

that Matthew Shepard place as a media star was predicated on several factors: his murder

was brutal and shocking, and his age, race, good-looks, and class status made him the

perfect victim for a national media looking for a good story. But will this coverage have

any lasting effect on how both the media – and public policy – deal with

anti-gay violence? If Matthew Shepard was an African-American teenage hustler the story

would have been different: there would not have been a story. Is the media simply going to

go for the most sensational stories of anti-gay violence: beheadings, public burnings,

dead bodies in zippered bags? The only reason the press reported on the Castro Street

beating was that it took place in the dead-center of the most famous, public gay

neighborhood in the world.

Anywhere else it would not be news. In the past three decades U.S.

culture has made some significant changes in how some issues about violence and

discrimination are perceived and acted upon. Rape (although it still occurs all the time)

is now treated more seriously by the police and the courts. The same is true of domestic

violence. As recent events in New York have shown the uphill, and ferociously waged,

battle to have police violence against people of color is alive, well and even making some

progress. These changes all came about because of committed, sustained grass roots

organizing, a insistence that the issues be taken serious as a moral imperative, and a

demand that the popular media both pay attention and act more responsibly. But will this

coverage of anti-gay violence engender substantive change? If it has any chance to do it

must move beyond simple sentimentalization and pity for "nice" victims –

the bulk of reported anti-gay assaults in Manhattan, for instance is faced by African

American and Latino transgendered sex workers. The other thing that has to change is that

anti-gay violence cannot be continued to be viewed outside of a broader political and

social context of the personal lives of heterosexuals. This may be beginning to happen. An

editorial in the St. Louis Dispatch on March 10, noted "the ideas allowed to fester

into the kind of murderous hatred that killed Gaither and Shepard …sprouted long before

any blows were struck, any triggers were pulled, any fires were set. Like all hatred,

anti-gay hatred is learned. Don’t turn a deaf ear when your kid calls another child a

"fag” on the playground. Don’t laugh at homophobic jokes in the office. Support

education that includes positive information on gays and lesbians. Let gay and lesbian

acquaintances or friends or relatives know they have your support. To condemn the brutal

slayings of these men without examining the routine homophobia in our daily lives would be

hypocrisy." I have deep suspicions of the ability of the mainstream media to effect

any positive social change. I think of the young men – boys, really – to shouted

and threw a bottle at me in the emblematically liberal city of Cambridge. I am old enough

to be their grandfather, my lover is old enough to be their father. The men – boys?

– accused of killing the "innocent" Matthew Shepard were his age. How do we

work on building a common consensus that hating gay people enough to attack them is wrong

is a culture that supports, or doesn’t care about, the most murderous aspects of U.S.

foreign policy? How do we discuss "accepting" – never mind valuing –

homosexuality in a country in which the complexity of race is still, for the most part,

undiscussible? Gay and lesbian activists have been organizing around violence issues for

decades, and to a large degree have not been taken seriously by many other political,

religious, or social institutions. It is one thing to advise that men and women not laugh

at fag jokes in the office, but we have to realize that not laughing – or rebuking

the teller – at fag jokes often labels someone a fag himself. One of the main

problems in fighting anti-gay prejudice is that the specter of homosexuality is

everywhere, implicating anyone who counters the sentiment. The mainstream press’s coverage

of anti-gay violence may be a beginning of a more complex, fruitful public discourse, but

it is only one facet of how the problem is confronted. Gay activists have to begin, or

continue, building coalitions with other anti-violence and social action groups.

Individuals doing political work on the left also have to take more time and energy in

examining the myriad ways sexuality – in all its manifestations – impacts on

social, national, and international policies and politics. In the meantime I am still

going to held my lover’s hand wherever and whenever I want to. But I am also going to

watch my back and be more purposeful in challenging people when faced with harassment or

violence. If we had chased and confronted those boys they might have thought twice before

doing this again.