by Autumn Sandeen

I was fearful as I prepared to board the flight to Denver. It was the first leg of a trip to the “cow town” of Greeley, Colo., where I was to report on the trial of Allen Ray Andrade for the blog Pam’s House Blend.

Andrade admitted killing Angie Zapata, an 18-year-old transgender woman, by beating her to death with a fire extinguisher after spending a few days with Andrade in her apartment.

Andrade was charged with first degree murder and bias-motivated crime—a hate crime. He was claiming a trans-panic defense: that he murdered her in a panic when he discovered she was transgender.

I felt the fear of going to a town where I didn’t know if it was safe for a transwoman like me to go. This is what hate crimes do—they terrorize members of an entire minority population who feel vulnerable and that the same kind of crime will happen to them. Being transgender like Angie, I was afraid.

In political terms, Greeley is a conservative red city in a formerly red state that’s only recently turned purple. And being in the same state as the headquarters of Focus On The Family—an organization that last May, in an attempt to block a transgender civil rights bill, famously ran a radio advertising blitz that warned of cross-dressed predators preying on children in elementary school bathrooms—I expected conservatives in the mold of FOTF leader James Dobson. Heck, I was in the back yard of former Rep. Marilynn Musgrave, the Congressmember who introduced the federal anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment and became famous for her anti-gay rhetoric.

In my hometown of San Diego, I’m out—with all capital letters. I decided that I needed to face my fear of anti-transgender violence and stay out in Greeley. I was surprised, however; my preconception of the people of Greeley was absolutely wrong.

From the local diner chain Perkins, to the downtown coffee house Café Woody’s, and from the King Sooper supermarket to the Holiday Inn Express I stayed at, not a single person I outed myself to met me with anything but kindness and acceptance. Even at the courthouse, the Weld County Sheriff’s Department’s Commander Ruiz told me that if I had any problems in using the women’s restroom, let her know and she’d “take care of it.”

I have no doubt Commander Ruiz would have. She and her entire staff at the courthouse were incredibly kind to me.

And then, the jury in this difficult case sent Angie’s family—as well as transgender people like me—a strong message about justice for Angie and justice for the LGBT community. The jury convicted Andrade of first-degree murder and of a bias-motivated crime. The first-degree murder conviction had a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole connected to it. This is also the first time a hate crime law that was specifically transgender inclusive was used for a transgender victim; and the jury came to that conclusion after less than two hours of deliberation.

I was pleasantly shocked. These convictions didn’t come in New York, Boston, Los Angeles or San Francisco, but in the red cow town of Greeley, in the purple, heartland state of Colorado, where the Weld County District Attorney’s Office pushed this case hard as a hate crime case.

Angie was a human being who didn’t deserve to die a violent death at the hands of someone who stated, “It’s not like I went up to a schoolteacher and shot her in the head or ... killed a law-abiding straight citizen.”

But Angie received justice. And with a verdict on the bias-motivated crime, the broader LGBT community received justice, as well.

I don’t want to read too much into this ruling, but I believe this jury ruling from the heartland of America tells us that middle America is readier for fully inclusive federal hate crime and employment non-discrimination legislation than Congress and many LGBT leaders believe. I believe that if Greeley can embrace justice for its transgender citizens, then many other red cities and red states can and will, with a bit of personal education.

I believe that this will just take more LGBT people being out and proud about who we are; I believe it will just take us educating the folks in our lives one at a time about our humanity.

We’ve come a long way. Sure, we still have quite a way to go for full equality, but I have hope that our out generation of LGBT activists can and will leave future generations of LGBT people a more just America.