The Laramie Project

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. People identifying as a part of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community (LGBTQ+) often experience discrimination in the US due to their gender identity and/or sexual orientation. What are some different forms of discrimination that many LGBTQ+ people have experienced? In which ways have these discriminatory actions resulted in violent hate crimes?

Teaching Suggestion: This question invites students to consider the historical and sociological context of the play: hate crimes against the LGBTQ+ community in the US. While hate crimes against individuals who are marginalized for their gender and/or sexual orientation are not a new form of discrimination, the rise of acknowledging and protesting such discriminatory actions marks a distinct sociological change in the US. Socially, the LGBTQ+ community’s visibility in the public sphere has increased since the latter half of the 20th century, largely in part to the HIV-AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and early 1990s. Despite the fact that many Americans are more tolerant of the LGBTQ+ community in the public sphere, hate crimes are still frequent.