Women in the Movement

Schedule of events from the Gay Women’s Alternative in 1989 showing a “Deaf Culture” lecture and ASL interpretation advertised for other events.

The Deaf queer community in DC thrived off of strong leadership from women throughout the 1970s and 80s. Though the Capital Metro Rainbow Alliance had several notable women members, it struggled to draw more women to its events and leadership. Some women blamed sexism within the organization, some claimed women just weren’t interested in attending the types of events CMRA hosted. Deafpride was more directly committed to women’s concerns. The close-knit nature of DC’s deaf community meant that the organizations frequently worked, organized, and socialized together.

Many people in the deaf queer scene observed that deaf lesbians had a more close-knit community among themselves, while deaf gay men were more integrated into the hearing gay community. The Gay Women’s Alternative, one of DC’s most influential organizations for queer women in the 1980s, made intentional outreach to deaf women. The GWA held weekly lectures and workshops where they occasionally invited deaf women to present, and by 1989 consistently offered ASL interpretation at their events. In 1995, Whitman-Walker Clinic’s Lesbian Services program began a short-lived rap group (a regular, conversational meeting) for deaf lesbians and bisexual women.

The Furies' newsletter, January 1972. Deaf artist and graphic designer Ann Silver is included in the credits on the back cover of this issue. Click on the image to flip through the newsletter.

Notable deaf queer women during this period in DC include: Ann Silver, artist and member of the lesbian separatist collective the Furies; Barbara Kannapell, linguist and co-founder of Deafpride; Betty G. Miller, co-founder of CMRA and pioneering artist; and Elizabeth Aviles, head of Deafpride’s Project AIDS.