Navigating Hearing Queer Spaces
The strength of these deaf queer organizations couldn’t always alleviate the struggles of existing within a largely hearing queer community. Deaf queer people and organizations often had to fundraise for basic accommodations like TTYs (teletypewriters for phones) in DC’s LGBTQ+ spaces. In 1979, the CMRA partnered with the Gay Alliance of George Washington University to throw a fundraiser for a TTY at the Gay Switchboard at the Gay Community Center of DC. In 1986, Gallaudet students raised money to install a TTY in the popular gay bar Tracks.
A newspaper article announcing Tracks’ new TTY, clipping from the Blade, December 12, 1986 (Rainbow History Project Series XIV, Tracks Scrapbook)
A presentation by CMRA member and community organizer Tom Kane at the 1989 International Deaf Way Conference at Gallaudet served as a sort of “state of the union” for the deaf queer community. He shared that an informal poll taken in 1989 showed that most deaf gay people identified first as deaf, then as gay. The following year, Kane told the Blade that, “Although the Gay/Lesbian community accommodates deaf people more often than the straight community, there needs to be more interaction and communication between the two communities.” The shortcomings of the queer community’s solidarity with deaf queer people was evident when interpreters and other accommodations were treated as an afterthought at events like DC’s Gay Pride Day.