LARAMIE, Wyo — When he walks around his hometown of Laramie, Wyo., Nicholas Jesse sees a lot that's familiar, but Pride flags in the windows of nearly every other business are different.
"I was like, 'Wow there is actually visible queerness here now,'" he said.
Jesse was five years old when two men in Laramie tortured 21-year-old Matthew Shepard to death for being gay. They left his beaten body tied to a split rail fence where a passerby the next morning mistook him for a scarecrow. The attack shocked the country and catapulted Laramie to global headlines as a place synonymous with hate.
Twenty-five years to the day after the attack, the murder still haunts the town. Jesse sees it whenever he tells someone he is from here. "Sometimes people are really blunt," he said. "[They ask] Do they still kill gay people there?"
Jesse said he wishes people knew about the vibrant, accepting town Laramie has become. "I feel pretty good," he said. "But I think the stigma often follows you anywhere you go."
On the campus of the University of Wyoming, Kora Wolfgang knelt to add to a sign to the Matthew Shepard memorial bench Friday -- one of the only public memorials to Shepard in Laramie.
"I think it's a part of our identity. Whether you like it or not," Wolfgang, who uses they/them pronouns, said.
But they said there is more to Laramie's LGBTQ+ identity than flowers on a bench. The idea, often assumed by outsiders, that queer people don't thrive in Laramie, isn't true. "I've been here 10 years and I'm going to continue," Wolfgang said.
They know, Laramie still has progress to make. "Visibility matters," Wolfgang said, "The more we can provide that visibility – even though it might seem small -- it makes all the difference in the world."
However, Jesse said visibility isn't as clear as it could be. The memorial bench on campus honors Shepard, but the only other location in honor of him in town is a mural tucked away in an alley, he said.
"It's very much in a closet, in a way," Jesse said. He wants people to know, Laramie is coming out of that closet. "I wish people just knew how tight of a community we are. How resilient rural queer people are," he said.
Jesse chairs Laramie Pridefest, which along with other LGBTQ+ organizations in Laramie, is planning a week of memorial events beginning Sunday. The goal is to acknowledge the past, celebrate the town's progress and push for more positive change.
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