Deaf, Kink, Lesbian

Sonya Moyer is a 70+ year old Deaf queer woman from Medicine Hat. At age 6 she moved to Edmonton to attend Alberta School for the Deaf where she lived in the dorms during the school year then would travel home for holidays.

She discovered she was a lesbian while attending Gallaudet College in Washington D.C. Like many queer people in the 70s and 80s, she married a man to hide her sexual identity but the marriage did not last long and she moved back to Canada… “where her roots are.”

After she returned, she found the love of her life, started to come out and found out something new about herself. She was kinky. As a Deaf person… connecting to the kink and queer communities has been difficult. When she was active in queer and kink community, finding other Deaf people in those communities was rare and most of the hearing people she met did not know sign language.

After we became friends he went on to interpret more workshops for her, and she invited me out for walks and the little parties she hosted. Sonya is an incredibly sweet woman. She loves baking and giving back to her community. I wanted to share her story because he finds stories from queer elders inspiring and wanted to bring awareness to the accessibility issues present in the queer and kink communities. It is important to make space for the disabled members, like Sonya, in our communities to make sure they are able to interact and contribute in a meaningful way.