District of Columbia
Recovery at the Triangle Club
Coming together as a group to fight a common addiction
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.
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.)
District of Columbia
Judge issues revised order in Capital Pride stalking case
Defendant Darren Pasha agreed to accept less restrictive directive
A D.C. Superior Court judge on April 30 reinstated an anti-stalking order requested by the Capital Pride Alliance against local gay activist Darren Pasha based on allegations that Pasha engaged in a year-long effort to harass, intimidate, and stalk the organization’s staff, board members, and volunteers.
The reinstated order by Judge Robert D. Okun followed an April 17 court hearing in which he rescinded a similar order he initially approved in February on grounds that more evidence was needed to substantiate the need for the order.
At the time he rescinded the earlier order he scheduled an evidentiary hearing for April 29 at which three Capital Pride staff members testified in support of the anti-stalking order. But Okun discontinued the hearing after Pasha, who was representing himself without an attorney, announced he was willing to accept a revised, less restrictive temporary restraining order.
The judge said Pasha’s decision to accept a restraining order made it no longer necessary to continue the evidentiary hearing. He then asked Capital Pride and Pasha to submit their suggested revisions for the order which they submitted a short time later.
The case began when Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C.-based LGBTQ group that organizes the city’s annual Pride events, filed a civil complaint on Oct. 27, 2025, against Pasha, accusing him of engaging in a year-long effort to harass, intimidate, and stalk Capital Pride staff, board members, and volunteers. It includes a 167-page addendum of “supporting exhibits” that includes multiple statements by unidentified witnesses.
Pasha, who has represented himself without an attorney, has argued in multiple court filings and motions that the stalking allegations are untrue. In his initial court response to the complaint, he said it appears to be a form of retaliation against him for a dispute he has had with Capital Pride and its former board president, Ashley Smith, who has since resigned from the board.
Similar to his earlier anti-stalking order against Pasha, Okun’s reissued order on April 30 states, a “Temporary Anti-Stalking Order is GRANTED, effective immediately and remaining in effect until further order of the Court or final disposition of this matter.”
It adds, “The defendant shall not contact, attempt to contact, harass, threaten, or otherwise communicate with any protected person, directly or indirectly, including through third parties, social media, electronic communication, or any other means.”
Unlike the earlier order, which did not identify the “protected persons” by name, the latest order includes a list of 34 people, 13 of whom are Capital Pride staff members or volunteers, including CEO Ryan Bos and Chief Operating Officer June Crenshaw. The other 21 people listed are identified as Capital Pride board members, including board chair Anna Jinkerson.
Possibly because Pasha addressed this in his suggested version of the order, the judge’s revised order says Pasha is allowed to visit the D.C. LGBTQ+ Community Center, where the Capital Pride office is located, if he gives the community center a 24 hour advance notice that he will be visiting the center, which hosts many events unrelated to Capital Pride. The earlier order required him to stay at least 100 feet away from the Capital Pride office.
The new order also prohibits Pasha from attending 21 named events that Capital Pride Alliance either organizes itself or with partner organizations that were scheduled to take place from April 30 through June 21. The order says he is allowed to attend the two largest events, the June 20 Pride Parade and the June 21 Pride Festival and Concert, in which 500,000 or more people are expected to attend.
It says Pasha is also allowed to attend the June 15 Pride At The Pier event organized by the Washington Blade.
But for those three events the order says he is restricted from entering “ticketed and controlled access areas.”
At the April 29 court hearing, Okun also scheduled a mandatory remote mediation session for July 23, in which efforts would be made to resolve the civil complaint case brought by Capital Pride without going to trial.
District of Columbia
Both sides propose revised orders in Capital Pride stalking case
Defendant Darren Pasha agreed to accept less restrictive directive
An evidentiary hearing in D.C. Superior Court on April 29 in which the Capital Pride Alliance presented three of four planned witnesses to testify in support of its civil complaint that D.C. gay activist Darren Pasha engaged in a year-long effort to harass, intimidate, and stalk its staff, board members, and volunteers ended abruptly at the direction of the judge.
Judge Robert D. Okun announced from the bench that the hearing, which was intended provide Capital Pride an opportunity to present evidence in support of its request to reinstate an anti-stalking order against Pasha that the judge temporarily rescinded on April 17, was no longer needed because Pasha stated at the hearing that he is willing to accept a revised, less restrictive temporary restraining order.
Pasha made that statement after two Capital Pride witnesses — June Crenshaw and Vincenzo Volpe — each testified in support of the stalking allegations against Pasha for over an hour under questioning from Capital Pride attorney Nick Harrison and under cross-examination from Pasha, who is representing himself without an attorney.
After Capital Pride’s third witness, Tifany Royster, testified for just a few minutes, and after the judge called a recess for lunch and to attend to an unrelated case, Pasha announced that after obtaining legal advice he determined that he was unsuited to continue cross-examining the witnesses. He said he would be willing to accept a significantly less restrictive temporary restraining order.
Okun then ruled that the evidentiary hearing was no longer needed and directed Capital Pride and Pasha to submit to him their version of a revised stay away order. He said he would use their proposed revisions to help him develop his own order, which he would issue after deliberating over the matter.
He also scheduled a mandatory remote mediation session for July 23, in which efforts would be made to resolve the case without going to trial. He then adjourned the hearing at 3:50 p.m.
The online Superior Court docket for the case stated after the hearing ended that the judge would issue “a new modified Temporary Protective Order,” but it did not say when it would be issued.
Shortly before the April 29 hearing began at 11 a.m., Harrison filed a “Draft Temporary Anti-Stalking Order” that included a list of 34 “Protected Persons” that Harrison said during the hearing were affiliated with Capital Pride Alliance as staff and board members, volunteers, and others associated with the group.
The proposed order stated, “The defendant shall not contact, attempt to contact, harass, threaten, or otherwise communicate with any protected person, directly or indirectly, including through third parties, social media, electronic communications, or any other means.”
The proposal represented a significant change from Capital Pride’s initial civil complaint against Pasha filed in February that Pasha claimed called for him to stay away at least 200 yards from all Capital pride staff, board members, and volunteers without naming them. Okun granted that stay away request in February but reduced the stay away distance to 100 feet.
Capital Pride attorney Harrison disputes Pasha’s interpretation of the order, saying the 100-foot stay-away was for events, not for individual Capital Pride staff, volunteers, or board members. He said the order prohibited Pasha from engaging in any way with the Capital Pride staffers, volunteers or board members.
But the proposed order Capital Pride at first submitted at the April 29 hearing also called for Pasha to stay away from and to not attend as many as 25 Capital Pride events scheduled to take place this year from April 30 through June 21 and for him to say away from the Capital Pride office located at 1827 Wiltberger St., N.W., which is the building in which it shares with the DC LGBTQ Community Center.
At the April 29 hearing, at Pasha’s request, Okun called on Capital Pride to consider allowing Pasha to attend at least the two largest events — the Capital Pride Parade and Festival — which draw over 500,000 participants.
Harrison said in a follow-up message to the judge following the hearing that Capital Pride would allow Pasha to attend those two events and one other as long as he stays away from “ticketed and controlled access areas.”
At an April 17 status hearing Okun rescinded the earlier stay away order at Pasha’s request, among other things, on grounds that it was too vague and didn’t provide Pasha with sufficient specific information on who to stay away from. It was at that hearing that Okun scheduled the April 29 evidentiary hearing, saying it would give Capital Pride a chance to provide sufficient evidence to justify an anti-stalking order and Pasha an opportunity to challenge the evidence.
In his own response to the initial civil complaint filed in February and in subsequent court filings, Pasha has strongly denied he engaged in stalking and has alleged that the complaint was a form of retaliation against him over a dispute he has had with Capital Pride and its former board president, Ashley Smith.
Like its initial complaint filed in February, Capital Pride filed a multipage document at the start of the April 29 hearing with written testimony from staff members and volunteers who allege that Pasha did engage in stalking, harassment, and intimidating behavior toward them and others.
Like Capital Pride, Pasha following the April 29 hearing, filed his own proposed version of the stay away order with significantly less restrictions than the Capital Pride proposal. Among other things, it calls for him to restrict his contact with Capital Pride CEO Ryan Bos and Crenshaw but says it “does not by its terms restrict the defendant’s communications with any other person, entity, governmental body, or media outlet.”
“Darren Pasha sent multiple messages to us and to the court after the proceedings asking for further modifications — which we are not accepting or responding to,” Harrison told the Blade in response to a request for further comment on Judge’s request for each side to submit proposed revisions of the stay away order.
“We appreciate the court’s time and careful attention to the evidence presented today,” Harrison told the Washington Blade in a written statement after the hearing. “This process was about bringing forward the experiences of individuals who reported a pattern of conduct that caused fear, serious alarm, and emotional distress,” he said.
“Capital Pride Alliance remains committed to ensuring that our events and community spaces are safe, welcoming, and free from harassment and we will continue to take appropriate steps to support and protect our community,” his statement says.
“I am happy with what we have accomplished so far,” Pasha told the Blade after the hearing. “I’m just waiting to see what will happen next. But I want to reiterate this goes back to when someone treats you wrong you speak up,” he said. “Even if I lose this case, I am glad that I spoke up and raised concerns.”
He added, “I will just be confident that in the next couple of months the truth will come out. But for now, I am happy with the progress that we have made regarding this.”
This story will be updated when the judge issues his revised stay away order.
District of Columbia
U.S. Attorney’s Office fails to reinstate hate crime charge in anti-gay assault
The Office of the U.S. Attorney for D.C., which prosecutes criminal cases in the District, has decided not to reinstate a hate crime designation filed by D.C. police against a man arrested in February for allegedly assaulting a gay man while using “homophobic slurs.”
After prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office initially dropped the hate crime designation filed by police shortly after the alleged attacker was arrested on Feb. 7, a spokesperson for the office told the Washington Blade the case was still under investigation, and additional charges could be filed.
“We continue to investigate this matter and make no mistake: should the evidence call for further charges, we will not hesitate to charge them,” a statement released by the office in February said.
But D.C. Superior Court records show the case against defendant Dean Edmundson, 26, of Germantown, Md., who is now charged with Simple Assault without a hate crime designation, is scheduled to go to trial on Aug. 18.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office this week did not immediately respond to a message from the Blade asking why it chose not to reinstate the hate crime designation.
An affidavit in support of the arrest filed in court by D.C. police appears to support the charge of a hate crime designation. It says the incident occurred around 7:45 p.m. on Feb. 7 at the intersection of 14th and Q Streets, N.W., which is near two D.C. gay bars.
“The victim stated that they refused to High-Five Defendant Edmundson, which, upon that happening, Defendant Edmundson started walking behind both the victim and witness, calling the victim bald, ugly, and gay,” the arrest affidavit states.
“The victim stated that upon being called that, Defendant Edmundson pushed the victim with both hands, shoving them, causing the victim to feel the force of the push,” the affidavit says, adding, “The victim stated that they felt offended and that they were also gay.”
Under D.C.’s Bias Related Crimes Act of 1989, penalties for crimes motivated by prejudice and hate against individuals based on race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity disability, and homelessness can be enhanced by a judge upon conviction by one and a half times greater than the penalty of the underlying crime.
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