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I think most hearing people assume that sign language was consciously "invented" one day by some "central committee of the deaf" and there was some great oversight in not making them all identical. :) I often hear "it's a pity they didn't make them all the same." I suppose it's a natural...

If there's a person trying to read lips then when there's a conversation people should take care to face inward so the deaf person can follow the entire conversation. Don't exaggerate but speak clearly (don't mumble), and if you have a big mustache, time to trim it! :)

I think this sort of thing is an issue for learners of any language. When you learn a word/sign with one meaning, it's easy to tie it too closely with that word in your native language and assume that it's used the same way. Then it's confusing when you see the usages that don't overlap. When...

I had my first sexual dreams when I was about 13, and they left no doubt at all. I came out to my mom at 19. She was really sweet about it; when she asked me how long I'd known an I said "for about 6 years," she said, "I'm so sorry you thought you had to hide it all this time." The weird thing...

Well, when you think about it, it's not so unusual. Most straight boys go through their long "Girls, yuck!" phase when they're kids, and when they see men and women kissing on TV they are pretty weirded out by it! :)

I wonder how they would determine consent from a Rottweiler? :) I do believe they need a signature on the marriage license... Just another illustration of the absurdity of the "slipper slope" argument of "next thing you know, people will be wanting to marry their dogs!" But of course they...

Though one person speaks for a friend and says he made a choice to be homosexual because of bad luck with women, I kind of doubt that. You can't just choose to be sexually attracted to a gender when you had no such attraction before. As for me - growing up I thought I liked girls. Well, I...

So do you sleep all night, and work all day, and like to press wild flowers? (And put on women's clothing, and hang around in bars?) ;) I told my mom when I was 19. Both parents were classical musicians and had gay friends so I was pretty sure I wasn't going to get kicked out of the house...

Interesting idea. In my sign language class it was almost all women; only two men ever came over a 6-month period and they were both quite obviously gay. There does seem to be something going on here!

You see, for all the women who say all the good men are either married or gay, there *is* justice in the world. :)

Yeah, it's always sort of "entertaining" to see how bigoted folks will explain away the other prohibitions saying "Jesus brought a new covenant" etc. So it's okay to eat pork now, and wear mixed-fabric cloth etc., nobody suggests stoning for a woman who cheats on her husband, or execution for...

Not a site per se but there are lots of deaf rooms on Camfrog, including several gay ones.

I'm not deaf, but if I were to lose my hearing, I'd probably take some time to deal with it. Eventually I'm pretty sure I'd say "I'm deaf and it's okay because there are infinite things to experience in this world and I'll never have enough time in this life to experience them all. This is where...

This has been a really interesting thread. As someone said earlier, people are classified, but they classify themselves as well. Something I've watched with interest is the difference in how a community sees itself according to majority or minority status. Because how people see themselves, and...

In my part of the world, the ASL "T" shape is an obscene gesture, which always gets big laughs when people ask you to show them the ASL finger alphabet. Even M and N are close enough to get them going. Lots of people know that alphabet here though (TSL has a two-hand alphabet), but the tend to...

From the bit of Google research I did, it seems ASL is just one sign language used in Ghana. One reference said "used to varying degrees in [list of countries including Ghana]. The fact that they speak English there is irrelevant; they speak English in England, Australia and New Zealand but...

I think this is actually an urban legend; it gets told about several different ethnicities or origins. The common thread is "ignorant foreigner names kid something embarassing." I've heard the version where the couple wanted to name their girl the "most beautiful world" they'd ever heard in...

I actually got to choose. :) Being the only American in my local deaf circles, the first automatic and obvious nick was the local sign for American (thumb against temples, wave with first and second fingers). But I didn't really like it because I don't like being referred to as "the foreigner"...

There are people who speak in an almost monotone way, and I think if we compare a speaker with a good vocal range to a colorful picture, then a person with a monotone sort of speech could easily be compared to a painting with washed-out colors, grayness in everything. In my year or so of...

I'd agree, any more than someone can speak one language and write grammatically in another; and sign language uses space in a way that doesn't correspond to words. SimCom is good for keeping people from being shut out of a conversation but one language or the other is going to predominate -...