peterson@istari.DEC (Bob Peterson) (10/30/85)
...henry strickland { akgua allegra hplabs inhp4 }!gatech!strick asks:
<the palm is down, above the head, with the finger just above the
<hair, and it's brought forward as if drawing a mohawk. Is this
<derrogatory? Used elsewhere?
I've seen this but in the reverse direction only: front to back. Perhaps it's
my interpretation but it's always been a swishy kind of sign. In Rochester NY
the deaf friend who showed me regarded it as derogatory. In "Signs of Sexual
Behavior" one of the very important maxims was to ask the person what sign
*they* prefer. So as a hearing person I'll bend and use whatever sign a deaf
friend wants me to use.
Example: in my involvement with student campus ministry in college I learned
to sign "amen" as "establish" (thumb-up fist, bring down to palm). When I used
that in a family dinner prayer at home my father (who is deaf) quickly rebuked
me and asked that I use the proper palms-together sign. Fine. It's *his*
language to develop and use daily, not mine.
I find this discussion very interesting. Though beyond just asking about
signs, I'd like to hear about the experiences and feelings of gay persons with
or who are hearing impaired. Myself I've met various hearing impaired folk at
bars in Rochester and D.C. through my limited signing skills. (I don't speak
ASL and it is *very* rare for a hearing person to speak fluent ASL: My hearing
friend Mark does and at an interpreter's conference he was chatting away in ASL
with some deaf folk; he was approached and greeted from behind by voice and the
others were *astounded* when he turned and said "Hi"... they thought he was
deaf!) Anyway I've mingled and gone out with one or two hearing impaired men:
it's like anyone else you meet, personalities either jive or not.
Communications skills seem to have little to do with it. Since moving to
Eastern Mass I met only one deaf person, and haven't had the energy to traipse
into Boston and put up with bars. I miss being around the deaf and hard of
hearing.
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