As we celebrate Pride Month, it’s crucial to recognize the vibrant tapestry of identities within our community, including those at the intersection of LGBTQ+ and Disability. This intersection is not just a coincidence but a powerful reminder of the diversity and resilience within our ranks. The struggles for LGBTQ+ rights and Disability rights have often run parallel, both fighting for recognition, acceptance, and equal access to society.
Guest blogger Diego Ozuna-Clark writes about navigating life as both Deaf and Queer.
“You’re Deaf and gay… why are you doing this to yourself? You are not going to make it through life like this.”
Those words speared through my whole being like knives, and I could feel my hair stand up on my neck. My father was making it clear that he was worried about me for all the wrong reasons.
Coming from a Mexican Catholic background, I grew up sheltered and infantilized. I was born Deaf to a Hearing family. “Hearing” is a term we Deaf folks use to describe folks who can hear and speak. My parents were Hearing, my grandparents were hearing, and everyone else in my whole family was Hearing—except for me.
Coming Out
When I came out for the first time as Queer in 2013, I had one single cousin who was openly gay. I already saw how my family spoke about and treated him. It wasn’t pleasant. It was just us two.
Deaf AND Queer? Nobody in my family. Except for me.
For June, when it’s Pride month, those words remind me why it’s important to be proud of who I am out loud – whatever that means.
I didn’t let myself warm up to the idea that I was Queer until I was twenty and Transgender when I was twenty-four. I was battling with what I knew and what I was beginning to discover.
Folks told me it was okay to be Queer. It was okay to be Deaf. And it was okay to be both. They welcomed me with open arms and shared their knowledge and experiences. Why didn’t I have that much earlier when I needed that the most? My upbringing was very traditional in a rural border town – where it was taboo to challenge the norm. “The gays are around us, but not in our family,” Father would tell me.
That was the limited information I had growing up. My dear mother passed away before I could even come out to her. She shared moments with me about people she knew who were Queer, and those experiences made me feel she would have loved me the way I am today.
All that fear and doubt were due to my lack of access to information outside of familial awareness. As soon as I had access to information, I was able to discover who I was, and I was able to name the things I was experiencing. I named things like gender dysphoria, non-binary, Disability justice, and cultural Deafness.
Pride is an annual reminder of how information changed my life. Growing up, I rarely met anyone who was Queer – or Disabled and Queer. It wasn’t discussed around me.
New Spaces and Perspectives
Attending college in Austin, Texas, changed my life. I met folks who welcomed me into different spaces I never had access to. From there, I learned so much about what I missed for the first eighteen years of my life – only because of how inaccessible most things are.
Deaf Communities
I have noticed that the Deaf communities often lack information and awareness due to limited access. This causes tension, confusion, and difficulties for people.
I want to share examples of barriers that limit information:
- Statistics show that more than 90 percent of Deaf children are born to hearing parents/families, and often, this is a barrier to these Deaf children having full, meaningful, rich language access. Either directly with their families or in schools. This impacts their ability to acquire information, just as I experienced.
- Captioned content online is barely starting to be “mainstream.” Before social media, Deaf LGBT had to find their own ways to their true selves through secret clubs, attending Pride without interpreters, taking risks, and even creating their own paths, like Drago Renteria, founder of Deaf Queer Resource Center.
- English is often not accessible for Deaf folks who are Native American Sign Language users or for those who are language-deprived or have auditory processing disorders. This applies to written text, movies, podcasts, music, and more.
- Folks who oppress Deaf folks and dismiss our identities, gatekeep information and resources. Like deciding what information is “important” and what is not important to share or make accessible. Google “dinner table syndrome.”
Shared Responsibilities
There are so many barriers. For me, being Deaf and Queer is now an important responsibility. A shared responsibility to push back, create new spaces for the most marginalized, and make information more accessible. Every day, there are more Deaf, Disabled, and Queer folks sharing their stories and content on social media, articles, books, and more. We have so much to learn from each other across all our multiple identities, and it needs to be accessible. The extra steps to make things accessible often have lasting impacts on others and can even save someone’s life.
Pride was started as a protest by Marsha P. Johnson, a Black Disabled Transwoman. Ms. Johnson is an example of how Disabled Queers have always existed and started the movement of Queer rights in the United States. We are here, and we aren’t going anywhere.
Choosing my life over my father was the hardest thing, but being Queer and Disabled is something to be proud of. I’m creating the life my ancestors always dreamed of. I am married and raising a beautiful baby – I cannot ask for more.
This isn’t the happy ending you might think it is. Our rights are under attack every day, and I still worry. We face hard things for being Disabled Queers, but Pride brings us precious moments of Queer Joy.