In my ASL lecture this week, we learned the sign for “signing” – a backward twirling of the fingers, sort of. It looks a lot like you’re winding yarn towards you. After our instructor demonstrated the sign and the class followed suit, he turned and wrote on the board.

gender differences
woman
male

He pointed to “male” and repeated the sign as he had signed it before: rapidly moving his fingers in clean circles, with his hands pointing directly at one another and his palms facing the floor. He then pointed to “woman” and began to sign a variation on this – he tilted his hands so that his fingers were in more of a triangle and angled his hands forward so his palms were facing the class. This time, rather than rolling his wrists to spin his hands, he moved his arms using his elbows.
If the “male” sign was a gallop, this was a prance.

He paused and turned back to the board. He added “gay” following woman and “lesbian” following man –

gender differences
woman/gay
male/lesbian

– and repeated his demonstration, while shaking his head and implying “No, not me!” for the “woman/gay” sign and “See, this one!” for the “male/lesbian” one – he put women and gay men in the same bucket, and men and lesbians in another.

I wasn’t sure what to make of this – no other sign we’d learned had been gendered in any way. I’m still not entirely sure what he meant, it’s somewhat difficult to Google ASL questions – I’ll have to ask next week.

It reminded me, though, of the embodiment of “feminine” and “masculine” we discussed, and how they apply to queer people – as well as how that embodiment is perceived by others. It reminded me of how women are expected and conditioned to use their bodies, as opposed to men. The “woman” sign was dainty and cumbersome, the “male” sign was fluid and practical. I was very conscious of his reaction as well – how awful would it be if he used the “woman” version of “signing”? How humiliating.