This is part of WTOP’s continuing coverage of people making a difference in our community, reported by Stephanie Gaines-Bryant. Read more of that coverage.
“Continue to be brave, continue to be smart and continue to be safe,” is the advice shared with LGBTQ people trying to navigate through life’s challenges by Monroe Poston, a D.C. native and transgender woman.
Poston is the workforce development and outreach specialist for the D.C. Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs. She’s also been the victim of a hate crime.
“It’s something that you don’t foresee coming, something you don’t expect,” Poston said. “It’s something that you don’t easily recover from.”
Poston said programs like the District’s Violence Prevention and Response Team (VPART) make the path easier for people in their community who have been through the trauma of a hate crime.
While growing up in the D.C. area, Poston recalled a lot of crimes taking place against the LGBTQ community. But she added that times are changing with the help of programs like VPART, which provides resources, including trauma-informed therapy, legal assistance, mental health services, shelter assistance and other essential support services.
Programs like VPART did not exist for Japer Bowles, director of the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, when he was growing up in southwest Missouri. Bowles said there were not a lot of openly gay people in his area, nor access to resources for LGBTQ people.
Bowles said his interest in advocacy and community work brought him to D.C. after he completed his education and had a few campaigns under his belt.
Bowles told WTOP that the program brings together community organizations and government agencies, such as D.C. police’s LGBTQ Liaison Unit and the Office of Human Rights to address, reduce and prevent crime — particularly hate-bias incidents within the LGBTQ+ community.
They meet regularly to review hate bias report data and also to make sure that their community members are directly connected to the services they need, Bowles said.
Their dedicated service providers include the D.C. LGBTQ+ Community Center, Latin American Youth Center and D.C. SAFE.
“I’m just glad that we have a mayor and a D.C. Council that hears us and wants to address these causes and concerns for our community,” Bowles said.
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