In honour of the deaf awareness month to raise South African Sign Language (SASL), UNIQ Magazine SA is highlighting some of the challenges faced by the deaf and queer community.

Apartheid, poverty, unemployment, and inequality have all had a huge impact on the social challenges South Africa continue to face today. It becomes even a nightmare if you are deaf and identify as homosexual in a country that claims to be inclusive and democratic.
There is still a lot of discrimination towards deaf people and their culture, caused mainly by lack of knowledge, harmful stereotypes and negative attitudes regarding deafness.

Xolani Mbatha, from Umlazi Township in Durban, the most dedicated employee at the KZN Deaf Help Centre, has experienced all the harshness that comes with being deaf and gay. He shared his countless encounters from living within the community that is homophobic and completely doesn’t understand sign language to ignorant and ill-informed employees in the public service sphere.

“I do not know how many times I had to go through a horrible ordeal whenever I sought help from the clinic or police station. I recall when I was troubled by piles, I visited my local clinic, because I could not communicate with the nurse, so I had to point where I am pained. The nurse that was helping me called other nurses and started whispering. I knew from their body language that they were talking about my sexuality and assuming that I am at the clinic because of sexual activities,” says Mbatha.

He says he grew up with piles, but he could not explain that because no one was there to do the interpretation between him and the nurses. He further recalls how he was left alone at the social grant offices where he needed to renew his social grant.

“I spent the whole day sitting in the queue, when I realised that the queue is getting smaller and smaller. Everyone would stand up and offered help but not me, just because I could not hear when my name was called out. I sat there until everyone left including the employees. I also left without getting help”.

Mbatha hopes for a day where employees in the public service sector, would be educated on sign language or rather employ an interpreter. He further explains that posters hanged in these offices are not helping because one sign in a poster can mean too many different things, depending on the context. Even written English can be challenging when you are trying to express yourself, because there are those who cannot understand it. He also wishes government can provide deaf and gay people with defensive classes and pepper sprays so that they can be able to defend themselves from criminals.

Deaf LGBTQI+ community hardly find jobs because they can’t express themselves and they can’t prove their capabilities because institutions are not accommodative of deaf people. KZN Deaf Help Centre has become their safe space where they can easily express themselves and find jobs there. Lack of resources such as data to access help from clinics and police stations is cited as some of the challenges. They can’t even seek for help through Whatsapp because they can’t afford data.

Another ordeal was Xolani’s coming out to his mother as gay, he was forced to move out of his home to find an accepting environment after his mother tried to strangle him when he was trying to alert her that he is gay. His mother could not understand sign language and the communication between them was barred. Mbatha could tell from his mother’s facial expression that she was not pleased to learn about her son’s sexuality.

While deaf people share certain experiences, the community is highly diverse. Some consider themselves to be part of the unique cultural and linguistic minority who use sign language as their primary language, while others do not. Deaf people have a wide range of communication preferences, cultural and ethnic backgrounds, and additional disabilities that shape their interactions with their environment.

It has become a trend for the DEAF LGBQI+ individuals to leave home and go where they are understood and accepted. They have created their own deaf culture which allows them to express themselves and live their life without being judged nor discriminated.
In this issue we have provided our readers with some information on Deaf Culture, you can navigate to our ‘useful information’ tab found under UNIQ Stories and learn more.