Queer ASL focuses on introducing American Sign Language and Deaf culture to 2SLGBTQQIA+ learners and their allies. The courses have a voice-off policy in order to both be respectful of signing spaces and to immerse ourselves in a signing environment. People who complete Queer ASL classes are able to carry basic ASL conversations and have a better understanding about Deaf communities.

Our classes are only taught by Deaf queer & trans folk for various reasons. The biggest two would be; creating a (safer) working environment for Deaf queer & trans folk to be themselves and a classroom where queer & trans people are being centered and celebrated.

Queer ASL runs on donations only. Our suggested donation sliding scale ($100-$350 per course) covers 8 sessions, all class materials, and weekly homework. However, nobody is denied access if they are unable to donate.

Our classes are fully online and in the future we plan to offer both in-person classes.

We use a flipped classroom set up. Our online courses include:

  • 8 classes per course (once a week for 8 weeks).
  • ASL lesson videos for students to watch & learn from before their weekly zoom class .
  • Weekly 1.5 hour long Zoom classes led by Deaf Queer instructors for practicing what we are learning.
  • Homework & vocabulary review videos to watch after each zoom class.
  • PDFs each week about Deaf culture, history, and Deaf people.

Our ASL Class Offerings

Queer ASL 101

This class is for people who have no previous (or very little) experience with ASL. This course covers learning the alphabet, fingerspelling, introductions discussing likes & dislikes, language upbringing, our identities, where we live, and much more. At our final class, students take turns telling an autobiography about themselves in ASL.

Queer ASL 102

This course is for people who finished 101 (or have similar amount of ASL knowledge). We cover discussing activities, ages & birthdays, living arrangements, family & relationships, transportation, work, and much more. At our final class, students share and discuss pictures their chosen families with each other.

Queer ASL 103

This class is for people who finished ASL 102 (or have similar amount of ASL knowledge). This course digs into the world of time grammar, topic+comment structure, directional verbs, space use, and much more. At the end, our students do an overall ASL 101-103 review through activities.

Queer ASL 104: Storytelling

These class is for people who have completed ASL 103 or (or similar). We focus on storytelling which involves learning about ASL classifiers, mouth morphemes, role-shifting, and developing our storytelling skills. During the course, our students work on a children book of their choice and tell the story at the last class.

Queer ASL 104: Conversational ASL

This class is for people who have completed ASL 103 (or similar) and want to focus on deepening their conversational skills. Each week we have different themes and conversation prompts facilitated by an ASL host. Our conversational classes are smaller than our usual classes in order to develop a more intimate community for conversing. We use a combination of games, main room conversations, and breakout rooms for smaller group conversations. We offer 3 conversational ASL classes with different topics.

Convo A: Getting acquainted, making plans, food & meals, media, travel, fashion, work & student life, and identity.

Convo B: our interests & hobbies, giving directions, restaurants, family/history/heritage, North America geography (where have you visited?), re-decorating, fashion (seasonal clothing favourites), news & current events.

Convo C: vacations & holidays, treasure map, speed "not-dating" bios, describing ourselves & others, the future, favourite media, music & describing sound (not necessarily audio-based), going for a hike.

QTBIPOC ASL Classes

This class is ONLY for students who are Black, Indigenous, and/or otherwise a person of colour, and who are members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.

The proceeds from our QTBIPOC classes go towards our scholarship fund that we are working on setting up this year for QTBIPOC students who want to continue their studies after Queer ASL with the goal of becoming an interpreter.

Here's a link to our scholarship fund for folks who want to contribute.

PWD ASL Classes

This class is centered around disabled folks, chronic illness, and neurodivergent folks who are members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.

This class will occur twice a week (one hour per session). Anyone who feels a shorter class twice a week would be a benefit is welcome but please be aware that we are centering disabled folk.

We will have an extra focus on sign modifications, going over stuff in a pace that feels most accessible for all participants, discussing access related topics when it comes to learning ASL, and basically just share space with each other!