Lesbian visibility: lesbians with disabilities

By Little G on Monday, November 16, 2009 - 17:08

If you think you have a hard time meeting women, imagine how your life would be like if you had a disability.

I have a friend who is complaining that she's not meeting any women. She lives in a city that has plenty of places for her to frequent, and there's even a support group for bisexuals she could join. Fact is, every time an opportunity arises she either uses her little daughter as an excuse to stay home, or she opts to hang out with straight friends. Don't get me wrong: I told her it's all fine by me, but don't complain about not meeting women.

Now, to some it's a very different story. To some there are extra barriers to overcome in order to meet women. Ponder this for a moment: how many (queer) people with disabilities do you know?

L-Word fans have undoubtedly seen hearing impaired artist Jody, played by Marlee Matlin. Remember the argument with ex Amy at Kit's neighborhood café? (Isn't it refreshing to see people not scream their heads off in a yelling contest?) Amy, by the way, is played by Deanne Bray, who some of you may recognize from the TV show "Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye."

I have a couple of queer lady friends with disabilities, and my friend Wendy agreed on sharing with eurOut readers what it's like to be a profoundly deaf lesbian.

At the time of the interview Wendy was achy from horse riding - a passion of hers. She lives in England and is employed as a Data Analyst. She tells me that she has no hearing in her left ear and only approximately 15% hearing in her right ear, in which she wears a digital hearing aid.

Up to the age of 7 Wendy had perfect hearing, but she unfortunately contracted Meningitis after a road accident. In severe cases it can cause a number of disabilities, such as loss of sight or limbs, mental disabilities, and deafness. Wendy's auditory nerves were burnt out, which is why she's now profoundly deaf.

When I asked my friend how it affects her life, she replied deafness is a hidden disability: if you see a person with a guide dog or a white stick, you know they're blind and mostly people will help them or be aware not to get in the way. It's similar with people in wheelchairs. However, it's harder to spot a deaf person. Some don't wear hearing aids at all, some wear them covered by their hair, and most of all people don't look at other people's ears in general. She says people assume you're being ignorant when you don't move out of the way when they're behind you or if they speak and you don't reply. Sometimes people just push her, just because she didn't hear them speak. Then there's the other approach where people know you're deaf and seem to think deafness affects your mental abilities and they speak very slowly and very loudly.

The misconception a lot of people have is they think turning up the volume of a TV set or stereo or even one's hearing aid means you can hear. Wendy stresses out that's not the case: it just makes everything louder (including background noise), not clearer, and she usually needs to see a person's face to incorporate lip reading with her hearing.

Many people will automatically realize being deaf means you're restricted from certain areas of employment where hearing is a necessity, and that attending the theater or cinema can be hard. Going out to social events can be tiring for her, because it's very hard to follow conversations in noisy environments when people are talking fast and often in large groups. Even more so when people talk all at once.

Despite her hearing loss, she attended University gaining a Degree in Accountancy and has worked for a Government Agency ever since. The company Wendy works for is extremely good about her disability, and with technology such as Messenger and email her life is fairly straightforward (although there's the exception of meetings, which she finds very tiring). She also mentioned she's lucky the company is extremely gay friendly as well.

Wendy's always known she likes girls, and she tells me thinking back she never really had any interest in boys. She remembers falling for her best friend when she was 11. Back then, she didn't really understand why she liked her so much. Growing up, she kept her sexual orientation hidden - even to the point of self denial, but she didn't try to fit into the norm by dating boys either. In hindsight it was more about not wanting to disappoint the family and their expectations, so the easiest way was to do nothing.

She recounts meeting a girl many years later, who made Wendy face her feelings for her and act on them. Meeting her and falling in love made Wendy decide to come out to her mother. She found it "the most nerve wrecking experience". Wendy sat her mother down and told her she had something to tell her. When Wendy told her mother she loved another girl, her mother replied she knew. Like in a classic movie scene, Wendy thought her mother meant that Wendy loved that girl as a friend, so she repeated her confession. Again, her mother said she knew, and thought that Wendy knew her mother knew, but didn't want to talk about. Wendy was so relieved she just cried.

Wendy told me it turned out that her mother had been hinting for months she knew, but Wendy didn't pick up on it. Since that day, they talk openly about it and Wendy's mother is very supportive of her, for which she's extremely grateful.

When asked how she meets women, my friend replied she doesn't really meet them. As mentioned previously, she finds noisy environments hard to deal with, so she doesn't go out a lot. The women she's been in relationships with sort of found her. But as much as she can be a flirt with friends online, she doesn't find it as easy in real life: Wendy's actually quite shy initially, so she finds it hard to approach women. She also has some confidence issues due to her hearing loss; she still struggles with the fact there are women out there who are interested in her - disability and all.

As for support groups, Wendy's not aware of any in the area she lives. She's not sure if she'd go if there was one. She explains: "For me, and apologies to anyone reading this who is deaf, because I wasn't born deaf I don't feel like I belong in the deaf world. No disrespect at all to people who are deaf, I know many find good friends and partners through groups aimed at their disability. In a way, I don't belong to either world, but I'd say because I spend my life since losing my hearing always mixing with hearing people, that is where I feel I belong the most and I don't use sign language. Although, it gets frustrating at times to feel isolated even in a group and not always able to participate. I am lucky that people I work with and my friends are understanding and mostly people are not always aware I have a disability initially."

Finally, this is what Wendy wants to say to readers of eurOut:

"I'd like to say, firstly, thanks for reading the article. Secondly, I hope that in some small way this article has made you more aware of the issues faced by people who don't hear. There are far too many to cover in the article, but little things like, not covering your mouth when speaking, not talking to a deaf person when there is a window behind you because it then makes you a dark shadow and most importantly facing a person when you speak to them so they can lipread you. Thank you."

Thank you for sharing, Wendy.

Watch for the second installment of an article related to gayneighbor.org in a couple of weeks.