The LGBTQ Health Clinic That Faced a Dark Truth About the AIDS Crisis
Editor’s Note: This article is part of a series about the gay-rights movement and the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising.
On an otherwise quiet residential block, with a school on one side and a church on the other, a nightclub once drew crowds from all along the East Coast for some of Washington, D.C.’s most raucous parties. The center of the city’s black gay nightlife, the ClubHouse, would have hundreds of patrons wrapped in a line around the block waiting to get in on a given night. But in the early 1980s, the nightclub’s manager began to notice that certain regulars had stopped showing up. Many of them, it turned out, were starting to get sick. Some started dying. For many, it visibly marked the beginning of the AIDS epidemic hitting D.C.
Like other organizations in the city, the ClubHouse quickly responded to the AIDS crisis. Its staff collected money for patrons who were too sick to work and pay rent. The club also partnered with Whitman-Walker Health, a D.C.-area clinic focused on HIV and LGBTQ care, to raise awareness about HIV and AIDS. With city funds, Whitman-Walker started programs like syringe could stymie the spread of HIV among injection-drug users by providing access to clean needles.
