Teresa wrote a fantastic article discussing Dan Savage’s “It Gets Better” project on YouTube. There’s more than 100 videos by people who have experienced or seen others experienced bullying, harassment, or general bad experiences because of their sexual orientation. She also expressed the need for the Deaf and signing community to make similar videos for Deaf LGBT youth,…
Category: Editorials
It Gets Better. It Really Does.
Unless you’ve been under a rock this week, you’ve probably seen this week’s troubling stories about gay teens committing suicide. The deaths of Rutgers University freshman Tyler Clementi, Asher Brown from a small town just outside Houston, Texas, and Seth Walsh in Tehachapi, California have haunted my thoughts this week. Watching Seth Walsh’s sister’s Youtube clip made before her brother…
What Makes an Interpreter Satisfactory or Acceptable?
So, I recently had a couple conversations with a pretty cool person, Robin*, who is just really starting to really dive into the field of sign language interpreting. We had some conversations about expectations of interpreters, etc. Robin admitted wanting to work on his/her [guess Robin’s gender!] interpreting skills so that one day I might…
Embracing Diversity in Communication
Communication is not just an exchange of ideas between two or more people. It is how we learn about each other. It is also a means of including people in or excluding people from a community. We are all aware of the difficulties we can face in communicating with hearing people. But what I want…
Teaching Hearing People Cued Speech…
…it’s not just about mechanics and understanding which “th” words are voiced and which are voiceless. (Yes, the “th” is different depending on the word!) It’s about collaboration, understanding, and communication. Oh, and motivation. Not mine. Theirs. But, first… a bit about me. I’m a native cuer. I’m also deaf—profoundly deaf. And I don’t exactly…
Tao of the Echo
Having always lived near the ocean, I know that things flow and ebb and flow. And so it goes with writing and the Deaf community. It’s interesting, this relationship that Deaf people have with writing, with journalism. Protracted love affairs with the written word are, for us, more like fits of fancy. Newsletters, magazines, the…
Deaf Identity, Interrupted
One gem emerged from the deaf blogosphere blitz which arose during the May 2006 protests at Gallaudet University. It is Genie Gertz’s video succinctly explaining the complex concept of Deafhood in just a few minutes. When I saw it for the first time, it totally clicked for me. I memorized it and repeated the video to all…