District of Columbia

Recovery at the Triangle Club

Coming together as a group to fight a common addiction

Published

2 years ago

October 26, 2023

If you need help with an addiction, the Triangle Club offers an array of meetings and resources. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

On Sunday, between the Dupont Italian Kitchen, where the tables are filled with the boozy brunches of the kickball gays, and Mikko, where a young couple is celebrating their anniversary with some Champagne, the door to a row-house opens, and all at once, a crowd pours forth onto the stairs. Only the stairs keep on filling. These folks aren’t leaving. They’ve only left the building to come to the stairs, just to chat. It’s as though 100 people all decided to go for a smoke out front, all at the same time. But if you ask them why they’re there, you’ll get only the vaguest of answers. “We’re just coming from a meeting,” one will say. “It’s a clubhouse,” says another.

There are good reasons for this vagueness. The Triangle Club is a center for queer folk to attend recovery meetings: Overeaters Anonymous, Alcoholics Anonymous, Crystal Meth Anonymous, Sexual Compulsives Anonymous. It’s part of the very mission of these groups to protect the privacy of their members. But these groups also want those in the queer community who need the support to know that they’re there. And so the folks at the Triangle Club were kind enough to welcome the Blade into their space for a few meetings, to see how things worked and shed some light on what they’re all about.

The Club had its kickoff meeting in 1988, during the AIDS crisis. Churches weren’t particularly enthusiastic about hosting gay recovery meetings in their back rooms. And so the Club sought to provide a safe place for those meetings to take place. At the time of the club’s founding, it was estimated that gays and lesbians were twice as likely to report problems with alcohol abuse than heterosexuals. One would hope that things might have changed in the intervening years. But according to a government report released this summer, that figure has barely improved. (The government report did not collect any statistics on transgender people.)

Of course there is no single reason queer people develop problems with drugs and alcohol. But one in particular struck me, especially as a reason I heard coming from a lot of the younger folk at the Triangle Club. “I thought meth was a prerequisite for going out,” said one. “I thought that’s what you did.” Another said, “I drank to find community. And then I drank to numb myself when I didn’t find it in the gay community.” Again and again, I heard stories about turning to drugs and alcohol as a way of finding connection, and as a way of coping with the failure to find connection.

*(Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)*

And so while I heard a lot of gratitude for the role the meetings at the Triangle Club played in people’s recovery, I also heard a lot of gratitude for the community of the Triangle Club itself. It wasn’t just that the Club helped people turn away from an unhealthy way of solving their problems. It’s that it gave them what they were really looking for in the first place: a community they could call their own.

Improbably, as I left a meeting of Crystal Meth Anonymous, I found myself wishing to be an addict in recovery. To have a place to share things that would go unsaid among friends and family, let alone therapists. To take part, week after week, in one another’s mission for a more fulfilling life. To be present for the absolute raucousness, as when one gentleman described living on meth as “wearing a fur coat into a swimming pool,” and then “turning the wave-machine on.” To hear the applause that only someone four days sober could receive. But what kind of destructive, life-threatening wish was I making? I couldn’t possibly be serious.

Many of us in the queer community are exhausted by drinking, if not drugging, our way into it. That exhaustion might not rise to the level of addiction, but this has the perverse consequence of not driving us to seek alternative forms of belonging. One of the men I interviewed kept talking of the “sober community,” and my ears perked up. Perhaps there was a broader community of folks, of which those in recovery were only a part, that wasn’t centered around substance use.

“The sober community absolutely extends beyond the Triangle Club,” he told me. “There are a bunch of other gay meetings that go on.” This wasn’t exactly what I hoped to hear. What a sorry state we’re in, I couldn’t help but feel that to be part of the sober community was to be in recovery. As though the community of substance use were so mandatory that it had to drive you to your own personal edge in order for you to find community in sobriety.

The Triangle Club should not be overly romanticized, and they’d be the first to tell you. People talked of trying to find fellowship at the club in the past, and not necessarily succeeding. Being one of two Black people in the room, only for the other to drop out of the program. Or of the demands of service, dragging yourself out late Friday night to chair a meeting, or sponsoring someone for the first time and being scared that you aren’t the right one to advise them. But I think it’s a testament to the space that these things could be said in the space. The meetings aren’t a place of mandatory optimism, but honest experience. And what good is a meeting for sharing honest experience if you can’t share your negative experiences too?

I had hoped, as part of this feature, to attend a meeting of Sexual Compulsives Anonymous. The two meetings I appealed to were kind enough to hold a vote on whether they would open their doors—but in the end they opted to remain private. One gentleman from the meetings volunteered to share a little of what these meetings were all about. Recovery meetings in general depend on coming together as a group to fight a common addiction. But “S” meetings, as the gentleman described them, can’t take “coming together” lightly, nor a “common addiction” lightly.

To begin with, sexual addiction is not as straightforwardly defined as addiction to drugs or alcohol. What sobriety is for one person is not what sobriety is for another. One person might be trying to curtail a masturbation habit. But for others? “That simply isn’t an option,” the gentleman said. And unlike recovery meetings for substances, which can ban substances from the room, the same can’t as easily be said for “S” meetings. We’re sexual beings, and so inevitably, to bring yourself into a room is to bring sexuality along with it. The recovery meetings at the Triangle Club usually end with the group joining hands to say the serenity prayer. But this can’t be a given at “S” meetings, where joining hands might be violating someone’s boundary.

With the pandemic waning, most recovery meetings have slowly started to transition away from video format back to in-person. But “S” meetings have been more reluctant to do so, and most have stuck with a hybrid format. One veteran of Al-Anon voiced his relief at coming back to the rooms. “You can’t hug a square!” I suspect that’s the very reason “S” meetings have been slow to return.

Part of my disappointment in not attending the “S” meetings was how central they seemed to be to a queer recovery organization. Substance abuse might disproportionately affect the queer community, but it is the addicts who are queer, not the addictions. If the addiction is to love or sex, however, the addiction itself is inextricably queer. Aren’t the “S” meetings the heart, in a sense, of the Triangle Club? But a conversation with a gentleman from Alcoholics Anonymous had me rethinking this. “[Accepting you’re an alcoholic,] it’s similar to coming out as gay,” he said. “There are people out there who view it as a moral failing, but it’s just part of who I am.”

The experience of coming out is so central to being queer. How could coming out as an addict have nothing whatsoever to do with it? The same story of a newfound, authentic life was as common to the folks at the Triangle Club as it would be to anyone who comes out as queer.

(CJ Higgins is a postdoctoral fellow with the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute at Johns Hopkins University.)

Up Next

Nearly 100 attend vigil for slain trans woman A’Nee Roberson

Don't Miss

Gay, bisexual men, trans women of color sought for new DC PrEP study

FUND LGBTQ JOURNALISM

District of Columbia

Capital Pride announces change in date for 2026 D.C. Pride parade and festival

Events related to U.S. 250th anniversary and Trump birthday cited as reasons for change

Published

1 day ago

December 12, 2025

Lou Chibbaro Jr.

A scene from the 2024 Capital Pride Festival. (Washington Blade file photo by Emily Hanna)

The Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C. based group that organizes the city’s annual LGBTQ Pride events, has announced it is changing the dates for the 2026 Capital Pride Parade and Festival from the second weekend in June to the third weekend.

“For over a decade, Capital Pride has taken place during the second weekend in June, but in 2026, we are shifting our dates in response to the city’s capacity due to major events and preparations for the 250^th anniversary of the United States,” according to a Dec. 9 statement released by Capital Pride Alliance.

The statement says the parade will take place on Saturday, June 20, 2026, with the festival and related concert taking place on June 21.

“This change ensures our community can gather safely and without unnecessary barriers,” the statement says. “By moving the celebration, we are protecting our space and preserving Pride as a powerful act of visibility, solidarity, and resistance,” it says.

Ryan Bos, the Capital Pride Alliance CEO and President, told the Washington Blade the change in dates came after the group conferred with D.C. government officials regarding plans for a number of events in the city on the second weekend in June. Among them, he noted, is a planned White House celebration of President Donald Trump’s 80^th birthday and other events related to the U.S. 250^th anniversary, which are expected to take place from early June through Independence Day on July 4.

The White House has announced plans for a large June 14, 2026 celebration on the White House south lawn of Trump’s 80th birthday that will include a large-scale Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event involving boxing and wrestling competition.

Bos said the Capital Pride Parade will take place along the same route it has in the past number of years, starting at 14^th and T Streets, N.W. and traveling along 14^th Street to Pennsylvania Ave., where it will end. He said the festival set for the following day will also take place at its usual location on Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., between 2^nd Street near the U.S. Capitol, to around 7^th Street, N.W.

“Our Pride events thrive because of the passion and support of the community,” Capital Pride Board Chair Anna Jinkerson said in the statement. “In 2026, your involvement is more important than ever,” she said.

District of Columbia

Three women elected leaders of Capital Pride Alliance board

Restructured body includes chair rather than president as top leader

Published

4 days ago

December 9, 2025

Lou Chibbaro Jr.

Capital Pride Alliance announced three women will lead its board. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)

The Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C.-based group that organizes the city’s annual LGBTQ Pride events, announced it has restructured its board of directors and elected for the first time three women to serve as leaders of the board’s Executive Committee.

“Congratulations to our newly elected Executive Officers, making history as Capital Pride Alliance’s first all-women Board leadership,” the group said in a statement.

“As we head into 2026 with a bold new leadership structure, we’re proud to welcome Anna Jinkerson as Board Chair, Kim Baker as Board Treasurer, and Taylor Lianne Chandler as Board Secretary,” the statement says.

In a separate statement released on Nov. 20, Capital Pride Alliance says the restructured Board now includes the top leadership posts of Chair, Treasurer, and Secretary, replacing the previous structure of President and Vice President as the top board leaders.

It says an additional update to the leadership structure includes a change in title for longtime Capital Pride official Ryan Bos from executive director to chief executive officer and president.

According to the statement, June Crenshaw, who served as acting deputy director during the time the group organized WorldPride 2025 in D.C., will now continue in that role as permanent deputy director.

The statement provides background information on the three newly elected women Board leaders.

• Anna Jinkerson (chair), who joined the Capital Pride Alliance board in 2022, previously served as the group’s vice president for operations and acting president. “A seasoned non-profit executive, she currently serves as Assistant to the President and CEO and Chief of Staff at Living Cities, a national member collaborative of leading philanthropic foundations and financial institutions committed to closing income and wealth gaps in the United States and building an economy that works for everyone.”

• Kim Baker (treasurer) is a “biracial Filipino American and queer leader,” a “retired, disabled U.S. Army veteran with more than 20 years of service and extensive experience in finance, security, and risk management.” She has served on the Capital Pride Board since 2018, “bringing a proven track record of steady, principled leadership and unwavering dedication to the LGBTQ+ community.”

• Taylor Lianne Chandler (Secretary) is a former sign language interpreter and crisis management consultant. She “takes office as the first intersex and trans-identifying member of the Executive Committee.” She joined the Capital Pride Board in 2019 and previously served as executive producer from 2016 to 2018.

Bos told the Washington Blade in a Dec. 2 interview that the Capital Pride board currently has 12 members, and is in the process of interviewing additional potential board members.

“In January we will be announcing in another likely press release the full board,” Bos said. “We are finishing the interview process of new board members this month,” he said. “And they will take office to join the board in January.”

Bos said the organization’s rules set a cap of 25 total board members, but the board, which elects its members, has not yet decided how many additional members it will select and a full 25-member board is not required.

The Nov. 20 Capital Pride statement says the new board executive members will succeed the organization’s previous leadership team, which included Ashley Smith, who served as president for eight years before he resigned earlier this year; Anthony Musa, who served for seven years as vice president of board engagement; Natalie Thompson, who served eight years on the executive committee; and Vince Micone, who served for eight years as vice president of operations.

“I am grateful for the leadership, dedication, and commitment shown by our former executive officers — Ashley, Natalie, Anthony, and Vince — who have been instrumental in CPA’s growth and the exceptional success of WorldPride 2025,” Bos said in the statement.

“I look forward to collaborating with Anna in her new role, as well as Kim and Taylor in theirs, as we take on the important work ahead, prepare for Capital Pride 2026, and expand our platform and voice through Pride365,” Bos said.

District of Columbia

D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith to step down Dec. 31

Cites plans to spend more time with family after 28 years in law enforcement

Published

5 days ago

December 8, 2025

Lou Chibbaro Jr.

D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith, who is stepping down from her job as chief at the end of this year, is shown here marching with members of the D.C. police LGBT Liaison Unit in the D.C. World Pride 2025 Parade held June 7. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

In a surprise statement on Dec. 8, Mayor Muriel Bowser announced that D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith will step down from her job on Dec. 31 after a little over two years as the city’s police chief.

In August of 2023, after Bowser named Smith as Acting Chief shortly before the D.C. Council approved her nomination as permanent chief, she told the Washington Blade in an interview she was committed to providing “fair and equal treatment” for all of the city’s diverse communities, especially the LGBTQ community.

She pointed out that in her role as the department’s Chief Equity Officer before she was appointed chief, she worked in support of what she said was the significant number of LGBTQ police officers serving in the department and also worked closely with the department’s LGBTQ Liaison Unit.

“We also have LGBTQ members serving in the reserve and volunteer corps supporting many functions in the department, including support for the LGBTQ Liaison Unit,” she told the Blade. “We have a nationally recognized LGBTQ Liaison Unit.”

Bowser’s statement announcing Smith’s resignation praised Smith for playing a lead role in significantly lowering the city’s crime rate.

“Chief Smith dramatically drove down violent crime, drove down the homicide rate to its lowest levels in eight years, and helped us restore a sense of safety and accountability in our neighborhoods,” the mayor said in her statement. “We are grateful for her service to Washington, D.C.”

Bowser’s statement did not provide a reason for Smith’s decision to step down at this time. But in a Monday morning interview with D.C.’s Fox 5 TV, Smith said she was stepping down to spend more time with her family based in Arkansas.

“After 28 years in law enforcement I have been going nonstop,” she told Fox 5. “I have missed many amazing celebrations, birthdays, marriages, you name it, within our family,” she said. “Being able to come home for Thanksgiving two years after my mom passed really resonated with me,” she added in referring to her family visit in Arkansas for Thanksgiving last month.

Smith said she plans to remain a D.C.-area resident following her departure as police chief. Bowser said later in the day on Dec. 8 that she needs some time to decide who she will name as the next D.C. police chief and that she would begin her search within the MPD.

Smith served for 24 years in high-level positions with the U.S. Park Police, including as Park Police Chief in the D.C. area, before joining D.C. police as Chief Equity Officer in 2021. A short time later she was named an assistant chief for homeland security before Bowser nominated her as Police Chief in 2023 and installed her as acting chief before the D.C. Council confirmed her as chief.

She became D.C. police chief at a time when homicides and violent crime in general were at a record high in the years following the pandemic. Although Bowser and Smith have pointed to the significant drop in homicides through 2024 and 2025, Smith was hit with President Donald Trump’s decision in August of this year to order a temporary federal takeover of the D.C. Police Department and to send National Guard Troops to patrol D.C. streets on grounds, according to Trump, that the D.C. crime rate was “out of control.”

Both Bowser and Smith have come under criticism from some local activists and members of the D.C. Council for not speaking out more forcefully against the Trump intervention into D.C. law enforcement, especially over what critics have said appeared to be D.C. police cooperation with federal immigration agents sent in by the Trump administration.

During a mayoral End of Year Situational Update event called by Bowser on Dec. 8, shortly after announcing Smith’s resignation, both Bowser and Smith said they cooperated with federal law enforcement officials to a certain degree as part of the city’s longstanding practice of cooperating with federal law enforcement agencies since long before Trump became president.

“We are currently on pace to be at the lowest number of homicides in over eight years,” Smith told those attending the event held at the D.C. Department of Health’s offices. “To date, homicides are down 51 percent compared to 2023, and we are down 30 percent compared to the same time last year,” she said.

She also noted that homicide detectives have been closing murder cases by arranging for arrests at a significantly higher rate in the past two years.

In her 2023 interview with the Blade, Smith said she would continue what she called the department’s aggressive effort to address hate crimes at a time when the largest number of reported hate crimes in the city were targeting LGBTQ people.

“What I can say is in this department we certainly have strong policies and training to make sure members can recognize hate crimes,” Smith said. “And officers have to report whether there are any indications of a possible hate crime whenever they’re investigating or engaged in a case,” she added. “We have a multidisciplinary team that works together on reported hate crimes.”