D.C. Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs Director Japer Bowles in 2025. He is among those who attended his office’s 20th anniversary celebration on Oct. 15, 2026. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Close to 200 mostly local LGBTQ community members and activists turned out on Oct. 15, for the 20th anniversary celebration for the D.C. Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs.
The event, which took place at the Penn Social event hall in downtown D.C., included remarks by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and Office of LGBTQ Affairs Director Japer Bowles as well as LGBTQ community advocates Rayceen Pendarvis and Charity Blackwell.
The local dance group Urban Culture also performed on the stage where each of the speakers, including Bowers and Bowles, credited the community activists attending the event and others involved in the LGBTQ rights movement with helping the LGBTQ Affairs office succeed in its work.
Prior to and after the presentation by the speakers, local DJ, music producer, and community activist Tony Play presented house and dance music, including the music the Urban Culture dance group performed with.
The LGBTQ Affairs Office, officially named the Mayor’s Office of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning Affairs, has Cabinet-level status and currently has six staff members, including Bowles as director.
In his remarks, Bowles noted that the office serves as the largest LGBTQ funding organization in the D.C. region, administering over $1 million in annual grants for local LGBTQ organizations and services.
Both he and Bowser said among the office’s most important accomplishments in recent years was helping the city serve as host for World Pride 2025, which drew more than a million visitors to the city who participated in hundreds of LGBTQ-related events.
“This has been one of the greatest honors of my life to lead this office,” Bowles told the gathering. “We’re celebrating during LGBTQ History Month,” he said. “Our history is not just something we look back on. It is something we keep making,” he pointed out, adding, “D.C. isn’t just supportive. D.C. is the movement.”
Bowles said that with the strong support of Bowser, the LGBTQ Affairs Office over the past 20 years has trained thousands of D.C. government employees in LGBTQ cultural and sensitivity awareness, “invested in hate violence prevention,” supported programs to provide housing for homeless LGBTQ youth and adults, supported a project to document the Black LGBTQ community’s history, and “we directed millions of dollars to organizations serving our community every day.”
“And I’m so grateful to you, the advocates, the community organizations, the business leaders, and our staff,” he said. In introducing Bowser as the next speaker, Bowles credited her with putting in place policies and actions that have advanced the office’s support for the LGBTQ community.
In her remarks at the event Bowser praised Bowles for his work in advancing the LGBTQ Affairs Office’s mission. She thanked former D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams under whom she noted the Office of LGBTQ Affairs was created during his last year in office.
“So, this is a birthday party, but it is also a call to action,” the mayor said. “Because I will sow my last day on Jan. 2,” she added, referring to her last day as mayor after deciding not to run for re-election for a fourth term in office.
Bowser noted that around the time the LGBTQ Affairs office was started the issue of legalizing same-sex marriage came up before the D.C. Council when she was on the Council representing Ward 4. She mentioned that the proposal was introduced by gay Council member David Catania and she immediately expressed support for the proposed legislation, which the Council later passed.
“And then those arguments, the discussions happened,” she said, referring to the ongoing debate over same-sex marriage and the possibility of Congress stepping in to overturn a D.C. marriage bill.
“But I have to tell you, your government said this is what we’re going to do. And we’re going to make it happen so there is equality in the District of Columbia,” she said.
She noted that the success in the approval of the same-sex marriage bill in D.C. was symbolic of the mission and success of the Office of LGBTQ Affairs over the following 20 years.
“People worked, they fought, they argued, they compromised, and they made this change,” she said.
When asked how he thought the event went, Bowles told the Washington Blade he was excited over the turnout and those who attended.
“A room full of community members, leaders, history makers, new friends, colleagues,” he said. “It was great. That’s what a birthday party is all about — it’s about honoring the people of the past, celebrating the many years ahead.”
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