Two decades after the tragic 1998 death of Matthew Shepard — who was brutally beaten for being gay in one of the most heinous hate crimes in American history — some progress has occurred toward LGBTQ equality, but obstacles still remain, advocates say. 
 
 The 21-year-old college student was abducted on Oct. 7, 1998 and driven to a remote area east of Laramie, Wyo., where he was tied to a fence, beaten with the butt of a pistol and left to die. Almost 18 hours later, he was found by a bicyclist who at first mistook him for a scarecrow. 
 
 Shepard died five days later at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colo. — setting off a wave of protests and activism that led to the passage of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which expanded federal hate crime laws to include attacks motivated by a victim’s gender or sexual orientation. 
 
 His attackers, who pretended to be gay in order to lure Shepard, will spend the rest of their lives behind bars. 
 
 Since Shepard’s death, his friends and family have honored his legacy by fighting to enact anti-hate crime legislation and protect minority populations through the Matthew Shepard Foundation. 
 
 Jason Marsden, executive director of the Matthew Shepard Foundation, said the occasion of the anniversary allowed him to reflect on social progress that’s occurred since his friend’s death — and change that still needs to happen. 
 
 “It’s meaningful to process how much time has gone by,” he said. “Obviously, now, we are in a very different position with same-sex marriage being legal nationwide.” 
 
 While significant strides have been made for the LGBT population over the past two decades, a tremendous amount of work remains to be done, Marsden said. 
 
 Employers in many states are legally protected to fire employees based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. 
 
 Cyberbullying also requires fresh thinking about how to protect minority populations, he said. 
 
 “It's a new problem that developed that didn’t used to exist and which is profoundly damaging to LGBT youth and youth from all walks of life that have minority identities,” Marsden said. 
 
 Hate crimes — which rose 12% in America’s 10 largest cities in 2017 — remain a cause for concern. According to a report by the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, anti-gay or anti-LGBT attacks accounted for the most frequent types of hate crimes last year in Los Angeles, Dallas, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and Detroit. In New York City, only anti-Jewish hate crimes were more common in 2017. 
 
 While hate crimes involving sexual orientation and gender identity remain common, 15 states have hate- or bias-crime laws that don’t feature LGBTQ inclusion, according to research by the Human Rights Campaign. 
 
 A handful of states still don’t have hate crime laws. 
 
 Currently, 18 states and Washington, D.C. have hate crime laws covering sexual orientation and gender identity. 
 
 Shepard’s parents have worked tirelessly to ensure that their beloved son did not die in vain. 
 
 Still, they are disheartened by the violence-inciting rhetoric that still exists today — rhetoric that advocates say has worsened since Donald Trump entered the political arena. 
 
 “We in no way anticipated that we would make this giant U-turn,” his mother Judy Shepard told NBC’s “Today.” “I just feel like we are having to start all over.” 
 
 Mathew Shepard, a bright student who was openly gay, was beaten and tortured 20 years ago in an attack that would take his life. His parents and a foundation that bears his name re ... Mathew Shepard, a bright student who was openly gay, was beaten and tortured 20 years ago in an attack that would take his life. His parents and a foundation that bears his name re ... SEE MORE VIDEOS 
 
 Carl Siciliano, founder of the Ali Forney Center, an organization that serves homeless LGBT youth, remembers protesting Shepard’s death in New York City. 
 
 “It was out of control — cops wouldn’t let us go in the direction we wanted to and we were all over the place,” he said. “It was an army of people being so upset and outraged over the horror and cruelty manifested in his death, and the hatred against us that we saw." 
 
 Siciliano, who is gay, said he feels safer today than he did in the 1990s, but that not everyone shares that sentiment. 
 
 “I think for transgender people it hasn’t progressed enough. There are still segments of society that face terrifying levels of violence,” he said. “And there are still also so many families that are not able to accept their LGBT children.” 
 
 The Ali Forney Center saw a spike in intake in 2017. About 20% more young people have sought out the organizations services over the past two years, according to Siciliano. 
 
 Both Marsden and Siciliano await a more diverse Congress that will enact legislation that protects the LGBT community. 
 
 Until then, Marsden suggests that individuals take it upon themselves to effect meaningful change — however small. 
 
 “Ultimately, we have the power to change society. If we want to erase hatred and its impact from our culture, we can do that voluntarily, individually, free of charge, immediately, by changing the way we behave, and by demanding more accountability from our institutions. 
 
 “If we try to erase a little bit of hate in our corner of the world, it is our most effective route to change. If you hear someone say something hateful, there are gentle ways to advance this message and it doesn’t have to be political, it doesn’t have to be confrontational,” he said. 
 
 Siciliano is also looking beyond the legislative track for change. 
 
 “It’s not a matter of laws but of the human heart of people to be able to accept one another and value one another in our differences,” he said. ||||| In his historic coming-out essay Monday, NBA veteran Jason Collins revealed to Sports Illustrated that he wore the number 98 in 38 games this season while playing for the Boston Celtics and Washington Wizards as an unspoken “sign of solidarity” with the gay community. 
 
 He said he did so as a nod to the Trevor Project, an LGBTQ suicide prevention foundation founded in August 1998, and also in memory of Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old University of Wyoming student who was killed in October 1998 in one of the most infamous antigay hate crimes in history. 
 
 Shepard’s parents, Dennis and Judy, had never spoken to or met Collins before receiving an email from David Smith of the Human Rights Campaign with a link to the SI piece Monday morning, but it doesn’t make Collins’ expression of unity any less meaningful. 
 
 “It made me cry,” Judy Shepard told FOXSports.com during an interview Monday afternoon. “It was really quite a tribute, and I was very honored. And I know Matt would be thrilled.” 
 
 And the Shepards hope, someday, to be able to thank Collins personally for his bravery in opening himself up to the world and honoring their son’s name in the process. 
 
 “I would really love to speak to him, because I know Judy and I would just like to thank him,” Dennis Shepard said. “Because, No. 1, he had the courage to come out, period, and No. 2 that he wore 98 in honor of Matt, the year that he died. 
 
 “(Collins) couldn’t have been that old (when it happened), so it must have had a tremendous impact on him, the story behind Matt, for him to want to do that. And then to wear it all this time without telling people why until today, that’s incredible.” 
 
 For the Shepard family, who started the Matthew Shepard Foundation on Dec. 1, 1998 -- what would have been Matthew’s 22nd birthday -- as a way to promote awareness and positive change with respect to the gay community, progress is vital regardless of where it comes. 
 
 In 2009, it came in the form of the passage of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which effectively classified anti-gay crimes as hate crimes. 
 
 “It’s a whole different world now from when we first started doing this,” Judy Shepard said. “It’s remarkable in the big picture how fast things have changed, especially since Obama became president. It’s just moved right along at light speed, and it’s really been quite remarkable.” 
 
 But to see that motion toward change come in the world of sports, an arena that’s somewhat lacking when it comes to gay rights, was particularly meaningful. 
 
 “Hopefully this will start the conversation saying there’s no difference, as long as my team wins, who cares if they’re straight or gay?” Dennis Shepard said. “There have been a lot of athletes that played and were gay, and I have a feeling their teammates knew it and they just didn’t care.” 
 
 Added Judy Shepard: “It’s always more challenging in team sports to have the courage to (come out), and I think that once the doors open, the floodgates will literally open. And not just in pro sports, but college and all down the line. It’s just a remarkable step forward.” 
 
 That’s a feeling shared by Abbe Land, the executive director and CEO of the Trevor Project, which has fielded more than 200,000 lifeline calls since its inception nearly 15 years ago, including more than 35,000 last year alone. 
 
 “(Collins’ coming out) shows young people that they can be basketball players or hockey players or football players, and that he was willing to do that and say he’s going to be who he is when he plays ball is very important,” Land said. “I think it really helps a young person kind of know that they are perfect just the way they are and they can achieve all of their goals and dreams.” 
 
 In addition to the 24-hour phone hotline, the Trevor Project also has its own social network, TrevorSpace, which has more than 50,000 active members. So to have a backer like Collins making LGBT youth more aware of their service is immensely important. 
 
 “If (Collins) hasn’t reached out to us, we will reach out to him,” Land said. “It’s great when we have folks who have high visibility who support the Trevor Project, because for a lot of young people, these are role models. So for him to say, ‘Here’s a place you can call if you need help,’ is great. … We still have a lot of work to do, but letting young people know that it’s OK to ask for help, that it’s OK to reach out, is very important.” 
 
 The goal, of course, for the Matthew Shepard Foundation, the Trevor Project and other organizations like them, is to get to a point where being gay is no longer viewed as controversial and to have the LGBT community be universally accepted. And though it won’t solve the problem altogether, having someone as visible as Jason Collins join that crusade is vitally important. 
 
 “You’re starting to see the general flow, that everybody’s realizing that there’s no difference between the straight community and the gay community,” Dennis Shepard said. “It’s just who they love, and for the rest of it, they’re out there, they have a mortgage to pay, they have kids in school, they want to have an ordinary life, retire and then die of old age with a smile on their face, just like everybody else. 
 
 “I just hope (Collins’ essay) furthers the cause, not so much for our foundation, but for the population in general, so we can get off this ride of having to worry about being the first, and these stories about who’s going to come out first. Who cares? The only first I want to know is Abbott and Costello.” 
 
 For more information on the Matthew Shepard Foundation, click here. For more on the Trevor Project, click here. 
 
 You can follow Sam Gardner on Twitter or e-mail him at samgardnerfox@gmail.com.
– Twenty years after he was tied to a fence, beaten, and left to die for being gay, Matthew Shepard will be laid to rest in the same cathedral as Hellen Keller and Woodrow Wilson. The ashes of the University of Wyoming student—kept in an urn since his 1998 murder—will be interred at Washington's National Cathedral following a remembrance service on Oct. 26, the Casper Star-Tribune reports. Shepard's death helped inspire the expansion of hate-crime laws to include crimes relating to sexual orientation. Shepard's mom, Judy, describes the location as "a sacred spot where folks can come to reflect on creating a safer, kinder world." The dean of the cathedral, which observed the 15th anniversary of Shepard’s death in 2013, said the cathedral was "honored and humbled to serve as his final resting place." He referred to Shepard's death 20 years ago Friday as "an enduring tragedy" that "should serve as an ongoing call to the nation to reject anti-LGBTQ bigotry." Despite the legalization of same-sex marriage nationwide, there is much still to be done in terms of legal protections, while cyberbullying presents a new and "profoundly damaging" problem for LGBT youth, Jason Marsden of the Matthew Shepard Foundation tells the San Diego Union-Tribune. "If we try to erase a little bit of hate in our corner of the world, it is our most effective route to change," he says.