International Week of the Deaf: Gay deaf woman teaches queer sign language in amazing video
Jessica teaching queer sign language. (YouTube)
If you’ve ever wondered how to sign words like queer, spectrum, gay, or lesbian, then today is your lucky day, thanks to YouTube star Jessica Kellgren-Fozard.
Kellgren-Fozard has over 320,000 subscribers on YouTube where she has made countless videos about her life, where she touches on the issues she faces as a deaf lesbian.
She also advocates for greater acceptance of disabled people in society.
Some of the issues she has focussed on in the past include tips on lip reading and the need for captions on videos.
Kellgren-Fozard is now on a mission to educate more people about sign language and lip reading, and how to communicate gender and sexual identity when a person is deaf.
The words she teaches in the video are communicated in British Sign Language, and include queer, spectrum, rainbow, lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, trans man, trans woman, trans person, intersex, pansexual, gender fluid, gender non binary and asexual.
She also lives with two other conditions called HNPP and MCTD, both of which are which are genetic, and has spoken openly about what it is like to live with a disability in her YouTube videos.
International Week of the Deaf (IWDeaf) takes place for the last full week of September each year, and this year’s theme was, “With Sign Language, Everyone Is Included!”
Jessica Kellgren-Fozard (YouTube)
People from the deaf community across the world come together during IWDeaf to promote the status of sign languages and the rights of deaf people.
Inclusion and equal participation in society require sign languages to be accessible, respected and supported.
If you would like to find out more about advocacy for deaf people and the need for accessible sign language, you can visit the World Federation of the Deaf’s website here.
