fletch@bsl
London
Born Jayne Elizabeth Fletcher, on the 30th November 1983 and grew up in
Wolverhampton, Jayne was born 3 months premature; Deaf, with the doctors giving
her only a small chance of survival. 38 years later this is her story… Jayne was
born into a hearing family, who have no experience of deaf culture, identity or
the language, they believed that Jayne would be fine and fit into normal hearing
world and that she would get by . . . . Jayne struggled for years to battle
mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, suicide attempts and
self-harm, which she believes to be mainly due to communication issues, as so
few people around her signed. Jayne spent a lot of educational years being
denied access to courses that she had wanted to study such as music, due to her
"disability". Her daily life incurred numerous barriers as there is very little
access to information for people whose first language is BSL (British Sign
Language). The impact of her announcing that she was gay, also resulted in her
being bullied, not only for her deafness but also her sexuality.
