African Studies

ISSN: 0002-0184 (Print) 1469-2872 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cast20

Rainbow: Constructing a gay Deaf black South

African identity in a SASL poem

Ruth Morgan & John Meletse

To cite this article: Ruth Morgan & John Meletse (2017) Rainbow: Constructing a gay
Deaf black South African identity in a SASL poem, African Studies, 76:3, 337-359, DOI:
10.1080/00020184.2017.1346344

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00020184.2017.1346344

Published online: 01 Sep 2017.

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AFRICAN STUDIES, 2017
VOL. 76, NO. 3, 337–359
https://doi.org/10.1080/00020184.2017.1346344

Rainbow: Constructing a gay Deaf black South African

identity in a SASL poem
Ruth Morgan and John Meletse
University of the Witwatersrand

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Issues around Deaf identity construction have been analysed in sign Received 25 July 2016
language literature in terms of a strategically essentialised Deaf Accepted 10 November 2016
identity. The idea of more fluid and shifting multiple identities has
KEYWORDS
informed Rachel Sutton-Spence’s 2010 analysis of four BSL (British sign language; sign poetry;
Sign Language) poems. A theme that cuts across these poems is gay; queer; deaf
that being gay or lesbian in the UK is unproblematic and
therefore not prioritised. There is at least as much emphasis on
being Deaf and a sign language user. Other facets of identity such
as race and personal interests also emerge in these poems.

In this article we look at how one of the authors, a gay Deaf black South African, John
Meletse, constructs his identity in the only available South African Sign Language (SASL)
poem on Deaf gay/lesbian identity Rainbow. This was the only poem that dealt with
gay identity issues among the performances that emerged from SHAW 2 (Signing
Hands Across the Water, an international sign poetry festival that took place in Johannes-
burg in 2014).
Our analysis of Rainbow reveals that Meletse makes symbolic use of handshapes, space
and other linguistic features of SASL. He also fully embodies his gay identity using con-
structed action and classifier constructions including strong emotive facial expressions
and signing in a camp, fluid, exaggerated signing style.
The comparison with four BSL poems (Sutton-Spence 2010) about Deaf gay/lesbian
identities reveals that the structural and metaphoric poetic strategies that Meletse
employs are similar to those used in the BSL poems. What is different is the extent to
which Meletse uses performance strategies to express his camp gay identity as a ‘gay
lady’ and the fact that he prioritises his gay identity over being Deaf and a black South
African.
Why are we analysing this SASL poem Rainbow? This poem emerged after Ruth Morgan
encouraged John Meletse to create a SASL poem about being gay as he is an important
Deaf gay role model in South Africa. As LGBTIQA+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender,
Intersex, Queer, Asexual) activists, we thought it was important to have a SASL poem
dealing with issues around his gay identity. A gay SASL poem would inspire other Deaf
gay people to come out. Such a poem would also enlighten Deaf straight people about
what it means to be gay and Deaf and hopefully build tolerance and understanding in

CONTACT Ruth Morgan Ruth.Morgan@wits.ac.za

© 2017 Taylor & Francis Group Ltd on behalf of the University of Witwatersrand
338 R. MORGAN AND J. MELETSE

the South African Deaf community where there is still a great deal of homophobia. Meletse
was inspired to create his poem during the Sign Language Poetry Festival where he was
the only openly Deaf gay South African participant out of about 70 Deaf people. So when it
came to analysing poems with LGBTIQA+ content we only had his poem to work on and
we decided to use it as a lens through which to examine his identity as a Deaf black gay
South African.
Many sign language poems in the United States and Europe deal with issues around a
core Deaf identity. Many of these poems were created during the first wave of the Deaf
struggle during the 1970s and 1980s in the US (Davis 2002 cited in Bauman 2008). The
experience of being Deaf is essentialised in these poems and overrides other identities.
This strategic essentialism (Spivak 1990) was necessary in order for Deaf people in the
US to prioritise being Deaf and using American Sign Language (ASL) in order to politically
fight for their rights as a minority cultural and linguistic group. They needed to prove to
the hearing world that they had their own language (ASL) which was linguistically equal
to spoken languages (Stokoe 1960) and their own corresponding Deaf cultural identity
(Padden 1989). A common theme in the early ASL poems are Deaf people’s suffering as
a result of being pathologised by the hearing world (educators and doctors) and being
forced to fit in by being given hearing aids and cochlear implants so they could learn
to speak. Deaf children were often punished for using sign language at school or at
home (Ladd 2003). This discrimination by hearing professionals against Deaf people has
been termed audism by Tom Humphries (1975). Audism was popularised by Harlan Lane
(1992) who compared Deaf people to other colonised people. Paddy Ladd (2003)
coined the term Deafhood to capture the processural and interactive aspects of Deaf cul-
tural identity. He shifted the focus to the process of Deaf cultural identity formation. Deaf-
hood is a creative and natural process towards self-actualisation as a Deaf person in day-
to-day life in relation to other Deaf people.
Many sign language poems focus on this linguistic and cultural oppression as well as on
the resistance to audism. Many poems deal with essentialised notions of Deafhood and the
pride and joy of connecting and communicating through a shared sign language. Some
poets deal with this directly while others achieve this through anthropomorphism
where an animal or bird of a different species is born into an alien species where they
feel displaced until they find their own kind (Sutton-Spence 2010).
Essentialised notions of Deaf identity were important for political reasons when the
Deaf struggle for cultural, linguistic and educational rights started after ASL was recog-
nised as a real language with its own linguistic structure equal to spoken languages in
the 1960s in the US (Bauman 2008). Post-modern notions of overlapping, fluid, positional,
relational, intersecting, multifaceted identities that shift and change have been the subject
of investigation, theorising and debate (Phoenix 2006; Cho Crenshaw & McCall 2013) since
a feminist scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989) coined the term ‘intersectionality’ in relation
to working-class black women belonging to multiple social categories (gender, race and
class) that influenced each other simultaneously. In the intersectionality frame, the
focus is on the fluidity and multiplicity of social categories and their associated positions,
identities and agencies.
This intersectional approach became more evident in the second wave of Deaf studies
from the 1990s in the US when Deaf rights had been more firmly entrenched in the West.
Against this backdrop, black Deaf people and Deaf gays and lesbians are asserting and
 AFRICAN STUDIES 339

expressing their multiple and fluid identities. Identities vary and shift according to factors
such as race, age, class, sexual orientation and gender (Sutton-Spence 2010; Bauman 2008;
Dunn 2008; Bienvenue 2008). The complexity of identity construction and the agency of
reclaiming being both Deaf and black in the US is unpacked by Lindsay Dunn (2008),
whereas MJ Bienvenue (2008) deals with the suppression of queer identities amongst
Deaf activists in the US until as recently as a decade ago. Different identities are ascendant
at different times and in different situations. As this article focuses on identity construction
through poetry, we will now consider the construction of narrative identities.

The construction of narrative identities

The literary analysis of identity construction involves an understanding of culture as a
process in which narrators actively construct and mould their own identities through
the texts they create (Rosaldo 1993; De Certeau 1984; Linde 1993) in relation to dominant
discourses in society (Willemse 2012). Poets like narrators actively select significant experi-
ences to include in their texts in order to make sense of their lives at particular points in
time in relation to particular audiences. According to Mikhail Bakhtin (1986), lives by their
very nature are unfinalisable and without structure. Poems and narratives about identity
can be seen as a way poets make sense of their lives and finalise the self at the
moment of narrating (Morson & Emerson 1990). This narrative performance of the self
at any given time will focus on particular aspects of the narrator’s multiple and intersecting
identities. However, this multi-faceted self is co-constructed as both the performer and the
audience retain the finalising outsider perspective necessary for the emergence of the
unfinalised aspects of the self (Bakhtin 1986). The performance of the poem/narrative
gives both form and shape to the narrative identities (Fischer-Rosenthal 1995; Willemse
2012; Willemse, Morgan & Meletse 2009). This is particularly true in sign language
where the entire body and face is involved in the expression of the language in the
visual-gestural modality (Sutton-Spence 2010).

Deaf LGBTIQA+ identities in written and signed Deaf poetry

There are only two international written anthologies of stories and poems by Deaf
LGBTIQA+ people both edited and compiled by Raymond Luczak in 1993 and 2007 in
the US. There are a range of poems and short stories and interviews in the two anthologies
about being both Deaf and gay. The second anthology provides contributions from
Europe as well as the US. John Meletse and Ruth Morgan’s (2007) contribution is the
only one from Africa.
Luczak (2007) outlines the parallels between the Deaf and the gay worlds, between
Deafhood and coming out as LGBTIQA+. Both Deaf and gay people have historically
struggled for acceptance. LGBTIQA+ people started their struggle in the 1960s with the
Stonewall riots in New York and Deaf people’s struggle for recognition as a cultural-linguis-
tic minority group also started in that decade with William Stokoe’s (1960) research on ASL
which finally proved that the structure of ASL elevated it to a language equal to any
spoken language. In the 1970s Deaf LGBTIQA+ people in the US started their own
branches of the Rainbow Alliance of the Deaf as they were not accepted by the heterosex-
ual Deaf world. There are many resources for Deaf LGBTIQA+ people in the US and in
340 R. MORGAN AND J. MELETSE

Europe where it is much easier to be out due to the increased levels of support within the
Deaf communities.
Rachel Sutton-Spence (2010) analyses how BSL and ASL poems express multiple iden-
tities including being Deaf and gay/lesbian. In the poems she looks at, being gay/lesbian is
not the only identity dealt with. It is one of multiple identities and there is at least an equal
emphasis on being Deaf amongst other identities. A theme that cuts across these poems is
that it is not a major issue to be Deaf and gay in the UK.
However, in South Africa LGBTIQA+ people are still largely closeted (Morgan 2008; Will-
emse et al 2009). In 2014 in South Africa, 20 years after democracy, and 18 years after the
drafting of a Constitution that protects both Deaf and gay people’s rights, Rainbow was the
only poem performed at SHAW 2 in which the poet explores another identity – being a
Deaf gay man.
The fact that Deaf LGBTIQA+ people are for the most part invisible in South Africa is not
surprising given apartheid’s legacy of social segregation, imbalanced resources, and
double stigmatisation. Deaf and LGBTIQA+ people are both discriminated against by a
society that does not understand what it means to be Deaf or what it means to be
LGBTIQA+. These inequalities are still felt in the black Deaf world to a much greater
extent than in the white Deaf world where white Deaf people have more resources and
can be more open about their sexual orientation. It is also harder for Deaf black people
to be LGBTIQA+ than for black hearing people as most hearing LGBTIQA+ people of all
races are able to exercise their right to be open about their sexual orientation and identity.
Ladd (2003) argues that until Deaf people’s rights and needs are recognised and met,
there is a need for what Gayatri Spivak (1990) termed ‘strategic essentialism’. As the strug-
gle for realising Deaf rights is not over yet, we need to foreground what is common to all
Deaf people rather than what is different.
This is what has happened in South Africa. The Deaf community for political reasons has
until now put forward a united homogenous and essentialised Deaf cultural identity
(Morgan 2014). Despite our advanced Constitution we are still fighting for the implemen-
tation of these rights in every-day life. Consequently, other intersecting or overlapping
identities have been downplayed. This could explain why at SHAW 2 there was only
one poem on the Deaf gay experience.
To understand why there are a lack of poems on complex and fluid overlapping iden-
tities we now provide a brief overview of what it means to be Deaf, LGBTIQA+ and both
Deaf and LGBTIQA+ in the South African context where the struggle for equality is not yet
over.

The SA situation
Being Deaf
There is a mismatch between the constitutional rights that protect Deaf people and what
happens on the ground in daily life. Although SASL is recognised as a language, it is not an
official language and is not used in most schools as the medium of instruction. SASL was
introduced as a subject in the first four years of school in 2015 for the first time. Until now
Deaf people have had an inferior education and only a handful of Deaf people obtain the
national school-leaving certificate. As a result, they are not usually able to access tertiary
 AFRICAN STUDIES 341

educational institutions. Consequently, Deaf people are often unemployed or employed in

menial jobs and most rely on the state disability grant to survive (Glaser & Van Pletzin 2012;
Morgan 2008).
South Africans are often denied competent interpreters as SASL is not an official lan-
guage and there are insufficient trained and accredited interpreters (Senne 2016). Many
Deaf people do not know they have the right to access information in SASL, the right
to equality, and the right to dignity (Dagut & Morgan 2003).

Being LGBTIQA+
Compared to other African countries, South African LGBTIQA+ people are much better off
as they have basic constitutional rights and many hearing people do come out as evi-
denced in the different Pride marches that occur nationally in Cape Town, Durban and
Johannesburg. In fact, Johannesburg and its surrounds host three to four separate Pride
marches in Soweto, central Johannesburg, Katlehong, and Pretoria. There are many
LGBTIQA+ organisations in urban areas that protect the rights of LGBTIQ+ South Africans.
There are also many LGBTIQA+ sangomas (traditional healers) (Morgan 2003; Nkabinde &
Morgan 2006).
However, the presence of homophobia persists. In the hearing world there is a high
incidence of what activists call ‘hate crimes’ including the rape and brutal murder of
LGBTIQA+ people particularly targeting black lesbians in the townships and rural areas
(Matebeni 2011). In these areas effeminate gay men, cross-dressers, and butch lesbians
are especially vulnerable. This also contributes to making it harder for black Deaf
LGBTIQA+ people to come out.

Being Deaf and LGBTIQA+

Deaf black LGBTIQA+ people are mostly invisible and are often still stigmatised in both the
Deaf community and by their hearing family members. The social segregation that was
inherited 20 years ago at the end of the apartheid era still persists to a large extent as a
result of geographical separation in the Deaf community at large as well as in the
LGBTIQA+ community. The response to Meletse’s poem about his gay identity was there-
fore powerful. After he performed it, some members of the predominantly black straight
audience approached him to say they now understand that he is strongly gay and can see
clearly why this is important to him.
Most black Deaf LGBTIQA+ people do not come out as it is too difficult. It is often harder
for many young black Deaf LGBTIQA+ people to come out to their hearing families who
often believe that homosexuality is a sin as well as being unAfrican and ‘not in our
culture’, than to come out in the Deaf community. There is a real possibility that they
will be forced out of the family home and land up on the streets. White Deaf LGBTIQA+
people are more resourced and can leave home and be more independent than their
black counterparts.
South African Deaf gay men do not conform to gender stereotypes from a very young
age and often adopt the gender role of the opposite sex. When growing up Deaf gay boys
behave like girls, they prefer to help with cleaning and cooking and play girls games such
as skipping (Meletse & Morgan 2011). This is also common in the black gay hearing world.
342 R. MORGAN AND J. MELETSE

Graeme Reid (2007) in his ethnography of black hearing gay men in Ermelo describes how
identities are constructed along traditional lines of masculinity and femininity. A gay ‘lady’
takes on the feminine role in the relationship with a masculine partner – these ‘gents’ are
the boyfriends of gay ladies and identify as ‘straight’. In the same way, some Deaf gay men
call themselves ‘gay ladies’. They are proud of signing in a camp effeminate style. They
partner with gay men who are more masculine and are called ‘gents’ in the hearing
black gay world (Willemse et al. 2009).

Analysis of John Meletse’s Rainbow

Synopsis of Rainbow
The poem starts with the birth of one gay character, next another character is born
straight. The gay character who we later learn is Meletse isn’t sure about his sexual
orientation and first explores his identity with a group or family of gay signers. He
then goes back to his straight hearing family as he isn’t sure about who he is but
they have a negative attitude and he doesn’t feel accepted or welcome there. He
then feels confused about where he belongs – gay world or straight world. He has a
dream in which he strongly identifies as gay and becomes certain he belongs with
his gay family. He tries his straight world one more time and confirms that he doesn’t
belong there anymore. He goes back to his gay family where he now can communicate
freely signing in a camp over-the-top-gay-flouncy way and feels comfortable and has a
sense of belonging and support. For his first Pride march he dresses up as a queen with
a flared long dress. The marchers watch the LGBTIQA+ rainbow flag as they approach
their destination. Meletse shows us, using affective facial expressions to express his exu-
berance, joy and pride, and tells us using more creative productive signs, such as
PEOPLE-MARCHING and FLAG-BLOWING as well as established vocabulary such as
RAINBOW and CELEBRATING-MY-GAY-LIFE to express his excitement, joy and pride at
the end of the poem.
Meletse’s poem Rainbow prioritises his gay identity rather than his Deaf or black iden-
tities. This gay identity is different from the more fluid and androgynous gay identities in
the US and Europe where the stereotype of being camp or effeminate is not something
that most gay men identify with or celebrate. In the black gay community in SA there
are many more ‘gay ladies’ than ‘gents’ (Reid 2007).

Comparison of SASL and BSL gay poems

We now compare Rainbow to four BSL poems1 that express the experience of being both
Deaf and gay or lesbian.
David Ellington and Richard Carter’s Deaf Gay tanka2 is performed as a duet and first
presents their different experiences of being born Deaf/hearing, black/white, healthy/
sick with meningitis. Their shared and joint gay identity is present throughout the
poem and their lives but is only emphasised at the end when their shared proud Deaf-
gay identity is prioritised. Their inner hands together make the sign for ‘gay’ in BSL
which is held throughout the poem without any internal movement while their outer
hands take turns signing. For the final sign Deaf they both step forwards and stay there
 AFRICAN STUDIES 343

while their inner hands move the sign ‘gay’ forwards with the production of the internal
movement for further emphasis.
Richard Carter’s poem Identity deals with three marginalised aspects of himself from
society’s perspective – being Deaf, a sign language user, and being gay. He is first criticised
for these unacceptable aspects of himself. Afterwards on self-reflection these three oppressed
identities come out and give him permission to be proud and accept himself fully. After this
when he is confronted by the outside world he can counter their oppression with pride and
with complete defiance establish his right to be Deaf, a sign language user, and gay.
The next two BSL poems include lesbian or gay aspects of identity but are not primarily
Deaf and gay/lesbian. Donna Williams’ poem Who am I deals with unpacking her identity
in the Deaf and the hearing worlds by acknowledging she has a range of identities that go
beyond this duality. At the end of her poem her multifaceted identity emerges. Being Deaf
and a lesbian are just aspects of her identities that are not privileged or prioritised as she
also likes Science Fiction and reading and writing in English.
In Richard Carter’s poem Prince Looking for Love there is nothing overtly gay. His por-
trayal of the human character suggests the person is male as a result of Carter not feminis-
ing the human character that he is portraying. Based on our folkloric knowledge we know
that the frog was and after being kissed by the girl becomes a male. Therefore we can
deduce that it is a gay poem or interpret it as such. Carter only uses the word ‘Prince’ in
the title – is the frog looking for love or is the human looking for love? He gives the impres-
sion that the human is looking for love that suggests it is the human. There’s a covert gay
theme rather than anything overt.

What does Rainbow show that is the same or different from the Deaf and gay BSL
poems?
The BSL poems Who am I, Deaf Gay, and Identity deal with multiple identities that include
oppressed identities based on race, gay/lesbian and being Deaf. Being gay or lesbian is not
prioritised as an identity. However in Identity and the Deaf Gay tanka, there is a focus on
being both Deaf and gay.
In contrast the SASL poem, Rainbow, is not explicitly about Meletse finding his Deaf gay
self – rather he’s a Deaf person finding his feminine gay self. His poem is a journey towards
him embracing and performing his identity as a ‘gay lady’ dressed up as a queen at the
Pride parade.
Being Deaf is never overtly mentioned and is assumed rather than explicitly stated. The
reason for this is that being Deaf is not a contested identity. He is completely accepting
and resolved about being Deaf in the world. As the poem has been created and performed
using SASL, his Deaf identity is covertly present throughout his performance. As a Deaf
person he is exploiting SASL fully to highlight his search for and discovery of his flamboy-
ant and creative large effeminate gay self.
Likewise, being black in the context of South Africa 20 years after democracy, is also not
an issue and is seen as natural and ‘normal’ for Meletse and is therefore not mentioned or
focused on. However, being a black gay man his black identity informs his feminine gay
identity and provides a context where masculine and feminine roles are proscribed
(Reid 2007). This contrasts with Carter and Ellington’s tanka where being black or white
is explicitly stated.
344 R. MORGAN AND J. MELETSE

Figure 1. Poetic sign for gay family.

Meletse’s poem is primarily about the process of ‘coming out’ in terms of finding a
‘home’ or gay ‘chosen family’ (Weston 1991) with other gay men. The productive classifier
sign he uses PEOPLE-CIRCLE can mean FAMILY or GROUP. Meletse prefers the gloss of
FAMILY (See figure 1). This is not a topic that is dealt with in the other BSL gay or
lesbian poems which we have looked at.
In Rainbow, the focus is a protracted struggle of going back and forth between the
straight and gay worlds. The turning point is his dream in which he accepts that he is
an effeminate gay man with expressive, emotional and unconstrained signing. He then
knows that he belongs in the gay signing space and does not have to try anymore to
fit in with the straight signers. He does not specify whether the gay men are Deaf or
hearing or their race but it is clear he can sign and communicate fluently with them in
SASL and that they accept his camp signing style.
Like the structure of Ellington and Carter’s Deaf Gay tanka Meletse starts his poem with
his birth as a Deaf person and ends with a declaration of a proud gay identity. However
Rainbow is much more elaborated in the stanzas in between, providing a great deal of
imagery. There is an extensive description of the process of gaining a gay identity and
then publically expressing and celebrating this identity by dressing up as a queen in
the Pride parade. He uses classifier constructions to describe his costume for Pride. He
shows us how gorgeous he looks, the shape of his long dress that flares out from the
waist and then down towards the floor and his flat sexy stomach (see figure 2).
He then performs his participation in the Pride march showing us two perspectives
simultaneously. While his hands use the classifier for MANY-PEOPLE-MARCH. which is
repeated rhythmically, the expression on his face indicates his own feelings as he
marches, his expression changes, becoming more animated, intense and excited as
they near the end of the march. As he watches the rainbow flag the people at the front
of the parade are carrying, the climax of the poem is reached by him first showing us
the flag billowing in the wind. He then signs RAINBOW followed by CELEBRATE-MY-LIFE
at the climax of the poem as the march finishes (see figure 3). The rainbow flag is signifi-
cant as an international symbol of LGBTIQA+ pride and identity.
 AFRICAN STUDIES 345

Figure 2. Gaining a gay identity.

Structural analysis of Rainbow

We now look at how this SASL poet crafts his poem to construct his gay identity. We claim he
does this in four ways. Following Sutton-Spence (2010) as other sign language poets do he
stretches the language in creative and unique ways using (1) spatial, and (2) handshape
metaphors. This means he creates another layer of meaning by manipulating the placement
of signs in the signing space3 and using open handshapes. (3) He also uses balance and sym-
metry (Kaneko & Sutton-Spence 2012). Balance and symmetry are key elements of sign lan-
guage poems as symmetrical signs are pleasing to the eye and give the poem a sense of
balance and resolution at the end where these features are used to maximum effect in com-
bination with spatial metaphors. (4) He performs his gay identity by using full or partial con-
structed action4 with emotive facial expressions to indicate how his gay character is feeling.

Metaphorical use of space

Sutton-Spence notes ‘ … sign language poetry is an ideal vehicle for the exploration and
expression of Deaf identity’ (Sutton-Spence 2010: 58). Her paper on spatial metaphor
346 R. MORGAN AND J. MELETSE

Figure 3. Facial expressions during pride march.

focuses on how the signing space is metaphorically used to express different aspects of
identity. This is done by focusing on four different axes along which the hands move to
construct different contrastive meanings that go beyond the referential meaning of the
sign: vertical (lower vs higher), transverse (left vs right), and sagittal (self/identity nearer
the body vs others in front of the body). She also discusses the ‘foregrounded use of lan-
guage and performance as well as the use of style, speed of signing, posture and facial
expression that are used for contrastive purposes’ (Sutton-Spence 2010: 62).
Spatial metaphors are used to express different aspects of Deaf identities in sign lan-
guage poetry and narratives (Sutton-Spence 2010; Taub 2001). Following Sutton-Spence
 AFRICAN STUDIES 347

(2010) we will demonstrate how this is done both structurally using spatial metaphors
along two different axes. We use the signer’s perspective as we are looking at how he
uses space in his construction of his gay identity. We therefore use the terms right and
left to denote the signer’s right and left. We are aware that usually in sign language
poetry, the spatial analysis is done from the audience’s perspective.

(a) Transverse axis

Meletse contrasts the gay and straight worlds by setting them up on the right and left
sides of the signing space respectively. He uses the transverse axis to contrastively
place signs on the right and left sides of the signing space in order to focus on the gay
vs the straight worlds he inhabits. The right side of the signing space depicts the gay
world where he belongs, whereas the left side of the signing space depicts the straight
world where he is othered and stigmatised.
At the beginning of the poem he uses his right and his left hands respectively to repre-
sent a person who is born gay and a person who is born straight. He uses his right hand to
represent the gay person and his left hand to represent the straight person (see figure 4).
Movement and orientation of his body between the left and the upper right side of the
signing space predominate. He is being continuously drawn to the upper right side to
signify his strong gay identification with this world. We will now outline the movements
and body orientation between the left and right signing spaces in some detail.

Figure 4. Setting up the gay and straight signing spaces.

348 R. MORGAN AND J. MELETSE

The signs produced alternate between the right and the left signing spaces at the
beginning of the poem when the gay character moves back and forth from the straight
world on the left to the gay world on the right. He then returns to the central space to
sleep after being rejected by the straight world on the left (see figure 5).
He wonders where he himself belongs – in the straight world or in the gay world? He
then sleeps and moves back to the upper right side when he dreams about being gay and
part of the gay world. All these signs are made on the right-hand side (see figure 6).
He is now sure of the connection of his own identity to that of the gay family and goes
straight back to his gay family on the upper right.
He does one more cycle of going to the straight world on the left after he wakes up
from his dream that morning. They reject him again and he decides to leave and says
goodbye (see figure 7).
His last movement of self is from the centre to the upper right to his gay family where
he learns about gay culture and celebrates gay pride where he fully claims his new identity
(see figure 8).
Throughout the poem the right side of the signing space represents the gay person
interacting in the gay world. This is where his search for acceptance and self-expression
is realised. There are only two occurrences of signs made on the left side of the signing
space or with his body turned to the left representing Meletse’s failed forays into
finding acceptance in the straight world where his family is located.

Figure 5. Use of signing space for gay and straight worlds on upper right and left.
 AFRICAN STUDIES 349

Figure 5. Continued

(b) Vertical axis

In addition to contrastively using the left and right sides of the signing space along the
transverse axis, Meletse uses the upper and lower parts of the signing space metaphori-
cally. The vertical axis is additionally used to metaphorically express positive experiences
in the gay world of belonging and becoming (Morgan 2014). The upper signing space
represents positive experiences and emotions of belonging, for example, it is the location
of his dream about the gay world and his realisation that he belongs there – the sign
DREAM-HEART associated with identifying with his chosen gay family is located high on
the right side representing the gay world. He then realises this is where he belongs and
can express himself fully. This space is also where he signs the final part of the poem
where he celebrates his gay identity in the Pride march (see figure 6)
On the other hand the use of the mid signing space on the left has negative connotations
as it is associated with the straight world where he is stigmatised as a gay person and is not
accepted by his hearing straight family and the Deaf and straight community. Here he
feels unwelcome and faces many obstacles and frustrations. He tries to fit in with the
350 R. MORGAN AND J. MELETSE

Figure 6. Use of upper right hand space for coming out dream.

straight world located in this area before he fully accepts his gay identity located in the
upper right side of the signing space where he comes out (see figures 5 & 7).
This poem is a journey from birth to a coming of age and celebration of life. It starts
using the lower signing space at the birth of the gay character and ends with the signs
CELEBRATE-MY-LIFE and RAINBOW being produced using the entire upper signing
space, thus affirming the poet’s positive gay identity.
 AFRICAN STUDIES 351

Figure 6. Continued

The entire upper signing space is also used in a balanced and symmetrical way at the
end of the poem when he signs that he is watching the rainbow flag. The flag is signed in
upper central space, followed by the one-handed sign RAINBOW which moves from left to
right above his head arching above the flag. He ends the poem with a two-handed sym-
metrical sign CELEBRATE-MY-LIFE which ends with both fists above his head to convey his
feelings of strength and pride.

Metaphorical use of handshapes

Kaneko and Sutton-Spence (2012) discuss the different meanings attached to handshapes.
352 R. MORGAN AND J. MELETSE

Figure 7. Leaving the straight world on left - use of space.

Meletse uses mainly two-handed open handshapes with positive connotations – open
4 for GROUP or FAMILY and the B-handshape for FLAG-BLOW-IN-WIND and a variant for
MOTHER. The open 5-handshape is used repeatedly for CHAT and PEOPLE-MARCH. These
handshapes reflect his coming-out process: being open, honest and proud. The closed hand-
shape S is used at the end of the poem in the sign CELEBRATE-MY-LIFE. The closed handshape
has positive connotations in this poem and is a strong handshape indicating his strength of
character and his courage to march and celebrate his identity at Pride at the end of the poem.

Symmetry and balance

Symmetry and balance are exploited in the part of the poem when Meletse dresses up for
the Pride march as a queen with a flouncy, flared, long dress. He uses both hands symme-
trically in a large central signing space to show us his vivid description. Right and left hands
simultaneously produce the dress on each side and he also uses both hands to gesture
that he looks fabulous for Pride. Meletse now confidently signs using a camp gay
signing style which includes a much larger signing space, and large, rhythmic and more
fluid signing movements.

Performance of being gay

We argue in the final section of this analysis how Meletse’s Deaf gay identity is the most
powerfully expressed by ‘the foregrounded use of language or performance’ (Sutton-
Spence 2010:62). He achieves this by embodying his gay identity and showing rather
than telling us how he interacts with other gay signers using constructed action
(Metzger 1995). Constructed action is a term used to describe how in signed discourse,
the signer becomes the character and uses their entire face and body to act out what
the character is doing and saying. From Meletse’s facial expressions we can see he is
 AFRICAN STUDIES 353

Figure 8. Celebrating being gay.

performing his character using constructed action. At times he uses referential signs to
indicate what his character is doing from the perspective of the narrator while simulta-
neously using his own facial expression to indicate his character’s feelings. Most of the
time he is using full constructed action where the signs indicate what his character is actu-
ally doing. At these times he is enacting rather than telling.
354 R. MORGAN AND J. MELETSE

Figure 8. Continued

He uses constructed action as he becomes and enacts the main character first going
into the straight world with a bewildered facial expression that becomes negative,
using a tentative and subdued signing style which is extremely slow. He shakes his
head indicating that this is not for him and shows how his family rejects him using con-
structed action to indicate an angry, hostile facial expression.
He then has a positive dream in which he uses the signs DREAM HEART in which the
dreamer continues to use constructed action – and shows us how he smiled through
this dream in which he realises and understands his true gay identity and knows where
he belongs – in the gay world. He uses constructed action as he walks confidently away
from his straight family and returns to his chosen gay family and signs to them in a
more relaxed way while he smiles. After returning to the gay group we get a sense of
Meletse’s intense level of involvement and enjoyment as he uses constructed action to
show himself interacting with other gay men through his use of animated smiling facial
expressions, and his camp fluid signing style using exaggerated flowing and rhythmic
movements and employing a larger signing space.
 AFRICAN STUDIES 355

Figure 8. Continued

He does not use established lexical items to tell us he prefers interacting in the gay
world rather than in the straight world. He continues in the role of the gay signer using
full constructed action to show us the queen’s outfit that he is wearing for Pride. We
can see the enjoyment on his face as he uses classifiers5 to show us his flouncy long
dress. He does not use any established vocabulary signs and only uses descriptive classifier
356 R. MORGAN AND J. MELETSE

constructions using a flat open hand to trace the shape of his dress which flares out from
his waist in an arc towards the floor (see figure 8).
When he describes himself marching in the Pride parade, we can see from his facial
expression he is using constructed action to portray his own reactions whilst simulta-
neously using the sign PEOPLE-MARCH rhythmically and repeatedly. The signing speed
increases as the march progresses and his enjoyment increases. His expression also
changes to one of intense pride and joy as he signs CELEBRATE-MY-LIFE. He is using full
constructed action in which he fully becomes his gay self when he signs – his whole
being expressing his celebration of being gay CELEBRATE-MY-LIFE (see figure 8).

Conclusion
At SHAW 2 after Meletse performed his poem, a few Deaf straight people told him that
Rainbow was very powerful and highlighted the strength of his gay identity. They said
the poem really helped them as straight people to understand what being gay meant
to him.
We have demonstrated how a black, Deaf, South African poet creates and performs his
gay identity. His gay identity in this context and at this particular point in time is his most
marginalised and oppressed identity particularly in the Deaf black hetero-normative world
where there are very few out black gay men. In Rainbow Meletse prioritises being gay over
being Deaf and black. Being Deaf and a sign language user is obviously important as this is
a SASL poem but this comes through covertly in his creative and poetic use of the lan-
guage. Being a black South African is never overtly stated but covertly informs his con-
struction of an effeminate gay identity. This is not unusual in the black South African
context where gay men take on masculine or feminine roles and identify as either
ladies or gents (Reid 2007).
A comparison with BSL poems about multiple identities revealed that the structural
poetic strategies that Meletse employs are similar to those used in the poems analysed
by Sutton-Spence (2010). What is different is the extent to which Meletse uses perfor-
mance strategies to express his femininity. His performance of his gendered identity is
striking. He achieves this by adopting the perspective of his gay character. He uses con-
structed action to become the main gay character and enact this character’s actions
and feelings using emotive facial expressions and a great deal of classifier constructions.
This results in vivid imagery – we can see him signing with his gay friends, getting dressed
up as a queen for Pride and marching in the parade where he publically celebrates his
identity.

Notes
1. These poems were created after 2000 and performed at Bristol University between 2009 and
2011.
2. This originally refers to ‘the thirty-one-syllable [poetic] form that acts as the foundation for vir-
tually all poetry written in Japanese between 1850 and 1900’ (Carter 1991: 2). However, this
description is not very helpful when considering sign language tankas. According to
Makoto Ueda (1983) a tanka poet Akiko Yosano, distinguished haiku and tanka as ‘passive’
and ‘active’ poetry, respectively. A tanka can therefore be seen as capable of expressing emo-
tions, while haiku is descriptive and detached.
 AFRICAN STUDIES 357

3. The boundaries of the limited space in front of the signer where signs are conventionally pro-
duced extends up from the space in front of the top half of the body to just above the head.
This space extends outwards from the waist and close to the left and right sides of the body.
Most signs are made with elbows bent and arms not fully extended. In everyday signing these
boundaries are adhered to but in poetic signing, the signer can use creative licence to extend
the signing space (Baker et al 2016). This term was then extended to sign language discourse
by Kath Winston (1991) and Melanie Metzger (1995) as it was more accurate than role shift as it
involves the signer becoming the character by showing the facial expressions and body
posture as well as the content of the language used by the character they are representing.
4. Constructed action also known as ‘role shift’ or ‘role taking’ is the way signer’s assume the
character or role and perspective of a person in a story adopting their facial expressions
and posture and gestures (Baker et al 2016). In spoken languages this is usually done by
using reported speech. ‘Constructed dialogue’ is a term coined by Deborah Tannen (1989)
who pointed out that reported speech is always reconstructed by the narrator and is
seldom word-for-word.
5. Classifiers occur in most sign languages that have been researched by Baker et al (2016). Ted
Supalla’s (1982, 1986) seminal analysis of classifiers is widely accepted although there is dis-
agreement about the way they are categorised. He included a category called Size and
Shape Specifiers (SASS). These classifiers are used to illustrate the shape, size, and any physical
features of a referent. These are subdivided into those which are produced by using the hands
to trace an outline of the referent (tracing), and those which are produced by using carefully
chosen handshapes to indicate the shape or size of a referent that is static. They can use hand-
shape and movement to describe the shape of a referent in this case his dress – in figure 26
both flat open hands move outwards from his waist and towards the floor to trace the shape
of his flared dress.

Note on Contributors
Ruth Morgan is a hearing linguistic anthropologist who is a lecturer in the SASL department at Wits
University. She co-organised with Michiko Kaneko SHAW 2. She was previously the director of Gay
and Lesbian Memory in Action (GALA) and has worked with Meletse for the past 15 years.
John Meletse is a Deaf gay HIV positive activist who at the time of writing this article worked at Gay
and Lesbian Memory in Action (GALA). He teaches SASL at the Wits Language School. He is also an
honorary research fellow at the SASL department, School of Literature, Language and Media at Wits
where he collaborates with Ruth Morgan.

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