Trikone Atlanta

History

For about nine years, Trikone had existed exclusively on the solid, unstructured commitment of a handful of volunteers. These key volunteers provided us with a community of South Asian Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Trans, and Questioning (SA GLBTQ) people with whom to connect and talk. They started what has become the defining social event for Trikone, the monthly socials. Every second Saturday of the month, since its inception, we SA GLBTQ folk have had a place to go to and mingle. It's amazing and says volumes about our group that we have never gone without a monthly social in our almost sixteen years of existence.

Through these socials, as well as other events such as the Pride parade, coordinated events with Raksha, and "recruitment" of South Asians whenever our gaydar started beeping, Trikone has grown into an organization of over 70 members. We have over 200 people from all over the world on our yahoo group list. Most of this growth has happened in the past 3 or 4 years.

With this growth, certain issues became prominent. The socials, which once provided us with a safe space to talk and mingle, no longer felt as safe as before. With the large numbers of people on our Yahoo group list, many of whom were unfamiliar to most others, the hosts of our socials felt concerned about posting their personal information to the list. We could no longer be certain that all of the people on the Yahoo group were actually supportive of Trikone.

Due to this growth and the concern that our group wasn't serving its intended purpose, our core volunteers started questioning the purpose of Trikone and what we needed to do to make it serve its purpose. This discussion started in early 2002, but peaked in mid-2002 when a couple of incidents made our group feel unsafe. In July 2002, we had our first "Safe Space Group Discussion". Fifteen people attended this discussion, and it was at this meeting that we decided Trikone needed more structure.

Till today, Trikone and its members have provided a place for love, devotion and care for many people and shall always be stretching out to more people in need.