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 arenāt leaving. Theyāve only left the building to come to the stairs, just to chat. Itās as though 100 people all decided to go for a smoke out front, all at the same time. But if you ask them why theyāre there, youāll get only the vaguest of answers. āWeāre just coming from a meeting,ā one will say. āItās a clubhouse,ā 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. Itās 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 theyāre 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 theyāre all about.
The Club had its kickoff meeting in 1988, during the AIDS crisis. Churches werenāt 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 clubās 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. āI thought meth was a prerequisite for going out,ā said one. āI thought thatās what you did.ā Another said, āI drank to find community. And then I drank to numb myself when I didnāt find it in the gay community.ā 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 peopleās recovery, I also heard a lot of gratitude for the community of the Triangle Club itself. It wasnāt just that the Club helped people turn away from an unhealthy way of solving their problems. Itās 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 anotherās mission for a more fulfilling life. To be present for the absolute raucousness, as when one gentleman described living on meth as āwearing a fur coat into a swimming pool,ā and then āturning the wave-machine on.ā To hear the applause that only someone four days sober could receive. But what kind of destructive, life-threatening wish was I making? I couldnāt 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 āsober community,ā and my ears perked up. Perhaps there was a broader community of folks, of which those in recovery were only a part, that wasnāt centered around substance use.
āThe sober community absolutely extends beyond the Triangle Club,ā he told me. āThere are a bunch of other gay meetings that go on.ā This wasnāt exactly what I hoped to hear. What a sorry state weāre in, I couldnāt 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 theyād 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 arenāt the right one to advise them. But I think itās a testament to the space that these things could be said in the space. The meetings arenāt a place of mandatory optimism, but honest experience. And what good is a meeting for sharing honest experience if you canāt 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 doorsābut 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 āSā meetings, as the gentleman described them, canāt take ācoming togetherā lightly, nor a ācommon addictionā 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? āThat simply isnāt an option,ā the gentleman said. And unlike recovery meetings for substances, which can ban substances from the room, the same canāt as easily be said for āSā meetings. Weāre 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 canāt be a given at āSā meetings, where joining hands might be violating someoneās boundary.
With the pandemic waning, most recovery meetings have slowly started to transition away from video format back to in-person. But āSā 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. āYou canāt hug a square!ā I suspect thatās the very reason āSā meetings have been slow to return.
Part of my disappointment in not attending the āSā 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. Arenāt the āSā meetings the heart, in a sense, of the Triangle Club? But a conversation with a gentleman from Alcoholics Anonymous had me rethinking this. ā[Accepting youāre an alcoholic,] itās similar to coming out as gay,ā he said. āThere are people out there who view it as a moral failing, but itās just part of who I am.ā
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
Little Gay Pub to host April 25 celebration of life for Patrick Shaw
School teacher, D.C. resident praised for āwarmth, humor, kindnessā

Co-workers and friends will hold a celebration of life for highly acclaimed schoolteacher and D.C. resident Patrick Shaw beginning at 5:30 p.m. Friday, April 25 at The Little Gay Pub 1100 P St., N.W.
Little Gay Pub co-owner and Shawās friend, Dusty Martinez, said Shaw passed away unexpectedly on April 19 from a heart related ailment at the age of 60.
āPatrick touched so many lives with his warmth, humor, kindness, and unmistakable spark,ā Martinez said. āHe was a truly special soul ā funny, vibrant, sassy, and full of life and we are heartbroken by his loss.ā
In an Instagram posting, Shawās colleagues said Shaw was a second-grade special education teacher at the J.F. Cook campus of D.C.ās Mundo Verde Bilingual Public Charter School.
āPatrick brought warmth, joy, and deep commitment to Mundo Verde,ā his colleagues said in their posting. āHis daily Broadway sing-alongs, vibrant outfits, and genuine love for his students filled our community with energy and laughter.ā
The posted message adds, āPatrick was more than a teacher; he was a light in our school, inspiring us all to show up with heart, humor, and kindness every day. His spirit will be deeply missed.ā
The Washington Blade is preparing a full obituary on Patrick Shaw to be published soon.
District of Columbia
D.C. police seek help in identifying suspect in anti-gay threats case
Victim threatened with assault, called āfaggotā as he left Capitals game

D.C. police are seeking help from the public in identifying a male suspect whose image was captured by a video surveillance camera after he allegedly shouted anti-gay slurs and threatened to assault a man at 6th and H Streets, N.W. on March 20 at about 9:54 p.m.
A police report says the victim told police the incident took place shortly after he exited the nearby Capital One Arena where he had attended a Washington Capitals hockey game.
The police report says the incident began when the victim saw the suspect yell a racist slur at a person behind the victim and started to berate a valet operator.
āSuspect 1 then turned his attention to Victim 1 and called him a āfaggotā among other homophobic slurs,ā the report says. It says the victim then used his phone to record the suspect, prompting the suspect to walk away before returning and āsnatchingā the phone from the victimās hand.
āSuspect 1 walked several feet as Victim 1 followed, requesting his phone back,ā the report continues. āSuspect 1 stopped and turned to Victim 1 and while yelling other obscenities exclaimed āif you keep recording, Iām going to kick your ass.āā The report concludes by saying the victim was able to recover his phone.
It lists the incident as a āThreats To Do Bodily Harmā offense that is a suspected hate crime.
āAnyone who can identify this suspect or has knowledge of this incident should take no action but call police at 202-727-9099, or text your tip to the Departmentās TEXT TIP LINE at 50411,ā according to a separate police statement released April 23.
The statement says police currently offer an award of up to $1,000 to anyone who can provide information that leads to an arrest and indictment of the person or persons responsible for a crime committed in D.C.
D.C. police spokesperson Tom Lynch said the case has been under investigation since the incident occurred on March 20. He said the video image of the suspect, most likely obtained from a security camera from a nearby business, was released to the public as soon as it was obtained and processed through the investigation.
District of Columbia
Wanda Alston Foundation names new executive director
Longtime LGBTQ rights advocate Cesar Toledo to succeed June Crenshaw

The Wanda Alston Foundation, the D.C.-based organization that has provided housing and support services for homeless LGBTQ youth since its founding in 2008, announced it has appointed longtime LGBTQ rights advocate Cesar Toledo as its new executive director.
In an April 22 statement, the organization said that as part of a planned leadership transition launched in November 2024, Toledo will succeed June Crenshaw, who Alston Foundation officials and LGBTQ community activists say has led the organization with distinction in her role as executive director for the past nine years.
In a statement released last November, the foundation announced Crenshaw was stepping down from her role as executive director after deciding to āto step into her next chapter.ā
āJuneās leadership has been truly transformative,ā said Alston Foundation Board Chair Darrin Glymph in the groupās April 22 statement. āWe are immensely grateful for her dedication and equally excited for the energy and experience that Cesar brings to lead us into this next chapter,ā Glymph said.
āA seasoned LGBTQ+ advocate, Cesar brings over a decade of experience leading national campaigns, shaping public policy, and building inclusive communities,ā the statement released by the group says. āMost recently, he served as the National LGBTQ+ Engagement Director for the Harris for President Campaign and has built a career focused on advancing equality and equitable education,ā it says.
Biographical information about Toledo shows that immediately prior to working for the Harris For President Campaign, he served since April 2023 as deputy director for Democrats for Education Reform DC (DFER DC), a political group that helps to elect candidates for public office committed to quality education for all students, including minorities, people of color and LGBTQ youth.
Before joining DFER DC, Toledo served as political director for the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, where he assisted in electing out LGBTQ candidates to all levels of public office across the U.S.
āIām really excited about joining the Wanda Alston Foundation,ā Toledo told the Washington Blade. āAfter a decade of working at the intersection of politics and policy and advancing political candidates and equitable education here in D.C., I wanted to shift my career to direct services to the most vulnerable folks in the LGBTQ+ family and our homeless youth,ā he said.
Among other things, he said he would push for increasing the Alston Foundationās visibility and mainlining its services for LGBTQ youth at a time when the national political climate has become less supportive.
A statement on its website says the Alston Foundation was founded in 2008 āin memory of Wanda Alston, a fierce LGBTQ+ activist, national advocate, and government official who was admired by District residents.ā
The statement adds, āThe foundation opened the first housing program in the nationās capital in 2008 providing pre-independent transitional living and life-saving support services to LGBTQ+ youth.ā
In a separate statement, the Alston Foundation announced it would hold a āthank youā celebration of appreciation for June Crenshaw from 6-8 p.m. on May 20 at Crush Dance Bar located at 2007 14th Street, N.W. in D.C.
āLetās come together to celebrate her dedication and commitment for everything she has done for the LGBTQIA homeless youth population,ā the statement says.
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