GERMANTOWN, Wis. — Dozens of Germantown residents filed into St. John's United Church of Christ to learn more about the LGBTQ+ community.
Ricardo Galaviz with the Milwaukee LGBT Community Center hosts informational sessions like these often.
“It’s just about squashing those narratives and showing people the truth: that we are human, we are real, we exist, we get hurt, we celebrate, we are proud,” said Galaviz. “We call this course our LGBTQ+ Inclusivity 101.”
The event explained the letters in the LGBTQ+ acronym and ways to be better allies and promote inclusivity.
Less than a week ago a local Germantown newspaper released what advocates call an offensive comic depicting a trans person.
RELATED STORY: Paper, LGBTQ advocates respond to comic depicting transgender person
Galaviz says courses like these are aimed toward providing understanding so instances like that can be avoided.
“It’s really important that we're combatting that thought process by normalizing and educating. Education is the only cure for ignorance and that’s what we're trying to do today.”
The Germantown Community Coalition, a nonprofit aimed at building a welcoming community, also denounced last week's comic and hosted tonight's program.
“It brings us together in a comfortable, inclusive space where we can learn together, grow together, and find ways to be better together,” Melissa Garves, board member at the coalition, told TMJ4.
The coalition also created a petition "demanding change" from Express Newspaper, which published the comic.
“I hope that Express News will take a moment of reflection to recognize that it was wrong, and apologize for running it in the first place,” said Garves.
TMJ4 reached out to a representative of the paper last week.
"Now on second thought, should we have ran that? Probably not. It can be interpreted a couple different ways," said Craig Johnson, Vice President of Operations for Express News, which is based in Germantown.
"The way some people interpret it is as a total negative. And as some people, a positive," said Johnson. "We weren't interpreting it one way or the other."
Johnson said Express subscribes to a service that provides comics and other material, and they run it as is.
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