Fitting into communities

TRANSCRIPT

KRH: It’s interesting because in the deaf community… like I was saying in the group interview, sometimes it kind of contradicts what I say because I’m saying it’s a welcoming space then I’m saying… like yeah, well like… there’s hierarchy sometimes with like… but I feel like for BSL deaf people sometimes don’t feel completely comfortable with deaf people who speak and don’t sign that much and it kind of goes the opposite way sometimes I feel like… within the deaf community I’m not seen as deaf enough and sometimes I feel… it’s never been articulated but sometimes I feel like in the queer community I’m not queer enough as well which is interesting.

INTERVIEWER: So why do you feel that?

K: I don’t know, I think it’s just other people have had lots more experiences in the sense of, they’re much more like… it’s much more of an integral part of it whereas maybe for me, I don’t see it, it is… I don’t know, I don’t know. That’s something I’d have to think about [laughter] it’s just this feeling like, I guess I’m like bisexual but then I’m more like… I don’t know, it’s not something like… people were speaking about their experiences of coming out officially. For me, I guess maybe I’ve been quite lucky and the people I’ve been surrounded with growing up is never really… like my parents had like gay friends and stuff like that so it was never something that needed to be announced it was just kind of… and my friends were like pretty chill and just… so maybe I’ve never had those sort of experiences or barriers that other people have had, so it makes me feel like I’m not [laughter] worthy of being like… [unclear] when I’ve not had that much bad experiences with being queer… so, yeah [laughter].