The battle for privacy when you are 15 and deaf

In a recent workshop in Tierra del Fuego (Argentina) I asked a group of deaf young people to identify one single issue where they and other deaf people were most vulnerable in relation to their sexual health.

After some discussions and group dynamics, they selected the “right to privacy” as the topic they felt most urgently needed addressing.

My remit was to work with them to produce an education resource that will be used in schools and deaf organizations to introduce the topic and send a message about sexual health and rights.

Once again, I found we were dealing with something that is obvious but that, when you see it for what it is, feels like a huge discovery: privacy is an extremely delicate and complicated issue for deaf people.

For one thing, sign language is visible and obvious to the sight of anyone. This makes communicating in private very problematic for sign language users. (There is an interesting article referring to how deaf people deal with the obviousness of sign language in this blog.)

But these boys and girls in Tierra del Fuego also told me things I was not aware of: when they were younger, their bedroom door was always left wide open. This worked for their families as a way to be in continuous visual contact with their deaf family member – so that they could signal when someone was leaving the house or when the family was about to have dinner.

It didn’t work so well for them though. It was impossible to have any privacy with their bedroom door permanently open.

They told me many stories that showed how limited their privacy was as deaf children. For instance when they were in the bathroom, anyone might just walk in. Their family assumed that because they would not hear a knock on the door, there was no way to alert them beforehand.

We worked around these stories and experiences to find a way of creating a register of what is private and needs to be protected from the view and the curiosity of others.

The sign that is used in Argentina to say “privacy” is lovely. The right hand appears to catch hold of a word and then it safeguards it in a sort of nest made by the other hand at the level of the breastbone.

 

Throughout the workshop we reviewed examples of educational materials from other countries, looking for inspiration.

The goal was to create a resource that could be used to communicate to deaf adolescents and children the idea that privacy was their right and provide them with the (symbolic) tools they need to negotiate with their family and peers.

So they came up     with the idea of a comic strip which zoomed in on a house, then a bedroom, then a closed door. At the end was the sign for privacy and a message saying “it is your right to have privacy. Talk with your parents and your teachers about this. Seek help if you need.”

But what really struck me was what happened when we tested the initial version of the leaflet.

We tested it with 4 deaf young persons. We wanted to see if (a) they understood the story, and (b) they felt that the material was useful for them to change the way that they were able to address this issue.

Of the four individuals that took part in the test, three were totally unaware that there was a sign for privacy. 

By not having  a word in their vocabulary for privacy, I would argue that they did not have a concept of “privacy” either. We need words or language to be able to perceive and understand certain concepts.

With the three of them we had very interesting exchanges. They told us many stories and through the conversation it was felt that the leaflet added a very useful word/sign to their vocabulary and would change a very important aspect of their daily life.

One girl, aged 15, asked to take the booklet home. “I have always wanted to say this to my dad,”, she said.

The only individual who was already familiar with the sign for privacy was older. He must have been about 30 years old. Single, a good looking guy who has a job and lives with his parents, he was very confident in understanding the cartoon and keen to tell us about how well he deals with his privacy.

However, he told me that there is one private issue that he has not been able to negotiate with his parents: they still handle his bank account and salary for him.

For him, the right to handle his privacy was more about been able to take control of his private life. In the, no less erogenous, territory of his money and his decisions.

 

Note: Thanks to the people at the Tierra del Fuego Ministry of Education’s Sexual Education Program for letting me to walk with them in this exciting terriain. Thanks also to Analia Rosales whose sign for “privacy” appears in the pictures and to Samanta Uria for sharing her observations on the tests in Ushuaia.