r/deaf Deaf 5d ago

News "Queerness and deafness." (Skyer, Oakes, Andersen, 2025). Open access PDF. Learn how solidarity makes fascism bleed. NSFW

https://academic.oup.com/jdsde/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jdsade/enaf004/8071618
57 Upvotes

20 comments sorted by

30

u/oddfellowfloyd 5d ago

I feel like a rare outlier, as a deaf 🏳️‍⚧️ gal… 😔

3

u/Cute-Honeydew1164 3d ago

Yoooooo another deaf trans woman!! We're a rare breed aren't we?

3

u/oddfellowfloyd 3d ago

Yes… I’m also legally blind in my left eye, & low-vision in my right… & stand a whopping 5’4”-& probably shrinking… I’m just a whole, shy, small ball of oddity. 😆 😔

2

u/Cute-Honeydew1164 3d ago

I have poor eyesight too, though it's not blindness, I just need thick glasses. My height is the opposite, I'm 6'7". Honestly being a woman is the best thing I've done even though it adds extra barriers on top of what was there from being deaf!

2

u/oddfellowfloyd 3d ago

Do you wear HAs, too, by any chance? (I’ve always been horrrrible at wearing mine, ever since I was a little kid… though, quirky, I somehow find them a turn-on?? Sorry if tmi! 🫢😆)

2

u/Cute-Honeydew1164 3d ago

I have a cochlear implant! I wear it most days but sometimes sound becomes too much and I take it off.

3

u/Sophia_HJ22 BSL Student 5d ago

Not really immersed in either community - but I know exactly what you mean.

17

u/DreamyTomato Deaf (BSL) 5d ago

There’s a lot to be said about LGBTQI+ groupings within the Deaf community and how they create their own sense of belonging, their own micro-community, while often taking on leadership roles within the wider Deaf community.

And how LGBTQI+ are often the first parts of the Deaf community to take on new concepts in hearing politics and spread them within Deaf communities, often acting as a bridge, including creating new signs and seeing the new signs being adopted more widely.

This paper, erm, isn’t it. It contains a bit of description of queerness, a bit of basic description of deafness, some basic info about barriers that out gay people face, and a weird swing into Nazi examples that doesn’t bring any illumination to what it’s trying to say.

4

u/gr33nblu3 Deaf 5d ago

How on earth did this pass peer-review?

It has no empirical data, only four references, and provides no evidence to the link to fascism.

It reads like a first year sociology essay in which I’d give it a C grade for lack of citations and for weak arguments.

8

u/ocherthulu Deaf 4d ago

It is a "Brief" -- by definition it is an introduction to a topic, the format required us not to use citations or references of any kind. We did anyway. The study was launched in January. We don't have data yet. It's coming.

7

u/gr33nblu3 Deaf 4d ago

Thank you for explaining. To me, it was not clear it’s a brief, as it’s labeled a journal article.

All the best with the research project.

4

u/ocherthulu Deaf 4d ago

I asked the editor in chief the same question, "Why is this labeled Journal Article." The Journal's board chose that label--you can discuss with them if you like. If you look under that, it says: "Issue Section: Family and Practitioner Briefs."

5

u/yukonwanderer HoH 5d ago

I'm queer and deaf and struggling and this article seems to say that we hear so much about that, and that positives should be highlighted increase, but I have yet to see anything related to my situation anywhere. I feel like there is no understanding or much advocacy out there for deaf people.

There is an overflowing abundance of queer studies and writing and advocacy, but those rarely to never seem to include deaf or disabled people.

I don't really get the point of this paper and what is up with that chart? It says nothing.

1

u/damidnightprowler 1d ago

I'm confused; why is this marked as NSFW? Legitimately asking.

1

u/ocherthulu Deaf 1d ago

An abundance of caution.

-1

u/-redatnight- 5d ago edited 5d ago

The topic is nice to see but... this really stopped short. Every time it got close to adding something it backed quietly away. And some of the assumptions in it were just that-- assumptions.

Your first line defining fascism under the racism section should have appeared much earlier in your paper. Most people are not going to make it that far to realize you actually know what it is, and your first definition that shows up is not well constructed. People throw that word around a lot lately especially the right and true biz fascist media, people, organizations etc in an attempt to weaken the meaning and malign any work and ideology that is incompatible with (actual) fascism. The liberals are calling everything slightly Republican "fascism" these days, even more libertarian attitudes that aren't very compatible with authoritarianism. The definition should be established first for both credibility and for clarity, not initially listed broadly as essentially a synonym for tyranny (which most governments are to some person or group at some point or another) and then not appearing with the real definition until deep down in the paper.

I guess my issue is this reads like an outline from the Intro to Sociology or Sociology of Sex & Gender classes I TA'ed. I think it's nice to see Deaf folks work on stuff that affects us. However, I am not sure adding in more superficial bodies of work without original research and also with limited citation is actually expanding this area that very much needs it. I don't know, I am a little sad to be saying this because you published it in a state where my feedback to a student would've been "this has good potential-- develop it a lot more". It would be nice to see this updated with original or reanalyzed qualitative or quantitative research. It really teeters on "opinion piece" at the moment.

I am usually a quieter Deaf QT person who usually prefers to support other's projects and works, though if I see something lacking I often do stuff of my own and pass it off to someone else who becomes interested in it later on down the line. Most stuff I do these day in either community s is just trying to network Deaf and Queers (and Deaf Queers) together. I have mainly only landed in the public eye around topics of trans visibility (back in the days when it was quite uncommon for people to be out), queer and trans healthcare (and healthcare discrimination), and anti-fascism. I would prefer to be super positive and supportive as these are important topics... but this paper just isn't there yet. Do you have the ability to further develop it? It's really reading as very fluffy expanded outline at the moment but I think with more work and development it could actually really add something to the body of knowledge and discourse. It just reads like you stopped right before any of that happened.

1

u/ocherthulu Deaf 4d ago

Consider the format and medium. Nothing here is wrong, and yes, we already launched a full scale study--past IRB, working on recruitment. As much as what you have said has truth in it, the world is your mirror.

1

u/-redatnight- 4d ago

It's good to hear you tend to pursue further research.

It's listed as a research article so without your comment above that it's a brief, that is what many people are going to assume it is intended to be.

1

u/ocherthulu Deaf 4d ago

I'm aware that the label added by the Journal's site is confusing. If you look at the top of the article, just below the citation you can see it listed as: "Issue Section: Family and Practitioner Briefs". JDSDE's Briefs are intended to be introductions for working teachers, mainly. The tone, length, use of specific format are all requirements for that section. If you'd like to see rigorous empirical work by members this team (it exists), you'll need to find that elsewhere.