LGBTQ+ Inclusivity Discussed At Asbury Park Town Hall

ASBURY PARK, NJ – Georgie's hosted an "Open & Proud" town hall on Monday evening where members of the city's LGBTQ+ community spoke about making bars more inclusive for the community.

This town hall was one of several held nationwide by Miller Lite and Equality Federation as part of their "Open & Proud" initiative. The information gathered at these events will be used to help
create inclusivity training manuals for all of the bars serving Miller Lite.

"Our goal today is to hear directly from you. To hear about your experiences, challenges, and hopes for bars restaurants and how they can serve all members of the LGBTQ+ community while making them feel acknowledged, accepted and included," Harmonica Sunbeam, who was the moderator of a panel featuring Kadja Manuel, a community organizer at Garden State Equality, Pissi Myles, accomplished drag comedienne, singer, and hostess and Rhedd Rhumm, LGBTQ youth advocate and entertainer.

The event's goal was to focus on solutions rather than issues in three focus areas: safe atmosphere, inclusive experience, and patron empowerment.

Topics discussed included security at bars and restaurants being more aware of things like gender markers and pronouns when checking the IDs of people who identify as trans, gender binary, or gender non-conforming and straight, cisgender people coming into LGBTQ+ safe spaces and making them less safe.

"We are trying to teach them how to treat us; that's the point of this conversation," Myles said to the crowd.