Dr Patrick Rosenburg (UCL Psychology & Language Sciences) appeared on the BBC disability news and mental health podcast, Access All, this week to discuss a new glossary of LGBTQ+ vocabulary developed by UCL DCAL and charity Deaf Rainbow UK.
Funded by a grant from UCL's LGBTQ+ Equality Implementation Group, the project set out to develop a British Sign Language Glossary with more terminology for the LGBTQ+ community.
The project team, which consisted of Dr Kate Rowley, Dr Patrick Rosenburg, Dr Tyron Woolfe and Calum Medlock (UCL Deafness Cognition and Language Research Centre), worked closely with the charity Deaf Rainbow UK to propose over 109 words for development into BSL.
The 20 words and phrases that were developed were: Ally, Attraction, Bicurious, Bisexual, Cisgender, Gay, Gender, Lesbian, Monogamy, Open Relationship, Panromantic, Pansexual, Polyamorous, Questioning, Sexuality, Sexually Fluid, Straight, Throuple, Transman and Transwoman.
The project group consulted with Deaf and LGBTQ+ focus groups and the proposed signs were shared with the Deaf LGBTQ+ community at UCL for feedback.
Once refined, the 20 words and phrases were launched on the Deaf Rainbow UK website, with videos demonstrating the individual signs. An evening of Deaf Drag Bingo (using the new signs and not numbers) followed to celebrate the launch.
