The brutal abduction, beating, and killing of wyoming college student in 1998 brought the issue of violence directed at gays to a higher level of public awareness.

The brutal abuse and murder of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming in 1998 was a high-profile crime which gained massive publicity across the United States and motivated a public outcry for reactions by the government against similarly motivated hate crimes. As a result, President Clinton undertook efforts to extend federal hate crime legislation, which took over a decade to pass, resulting in the enacting of the Matthew Shepard Act into law in 2009.