Jennifer Southall: My Hands Are My Voice

BIO: Jen Southall is a running back/linebacker for the Oregon Ravens of the Women’s National Football Conference (WNFC), a certified hockey coach for the Portland Winterhawks, and a disabled hockey representative for the Oregon State Hockey Association. She has more than 25 years of experience playing hockey and advocating for accessibility on behalf of the deaf community.  

  (The Below interaction was translated through a Sign Language Interpreter)

WHEN DID YOU FIRST RECOGNIZE THE POWER OF YOUR VOICE?

 For me, ‘voice’ has a different meaning. Since I’m deaf, obviously, I don't use my voice in the traditional way. I use my hands as my voice. So, it’s a little bit of a different perspective. Typically, people will identify with a voice if you hear it. With me, I use my hands. I'm signing, texting, emailing. There are several different ways to communicate but right now, society seems really, really focused on the hearing world and hearing and speaking your voice only. I’m trying to change that perspective and what it means because our [the deaf] community is not unidimensional. We are a diverse voice in the world.

 I'm sure you’ve heard about Coda, the film that was released last summer? It's not a wonderful representation of the deaf community. It’s fairly cliche, specifically related to the deaf community, how the characters speak about deaf parents or deaf people in general.  It’s a skewed version that reinforces stereotypes and misrepresents key components of growing up in a deaf family.  I appreciate the increase in visibility for the deaf community and attempting to show our culture and our strength. It's making American Sign Language more visible. At the same time, it doesn’t depict our real life and what we experience every day. 

 So, that's what I am trying to show. That often shared stigma that hearing people have of deaf people. I want society to change how they view us, how they view disabled people, and to make their events more accessible. Within the sports industry, I’ve observed that a lot of people are not understanding what it actually means to be fully accessible. What does it look like specifically from a local, national, and global level?

HOW DO YOU USE THE POWER OF YOUR “VOICE”?

I’d like to continue advocating for full accessibility, not only on the youth level, but also on a national level. I’m focusing on the sports industry right now, trying to change the narrative. Accessibility should be thought of at the beginning of an event, instead of thinking about it later down the road. And, yes, I do want to show deaf culture as well, but accessibility is the top priority.

 I love hockey. I've grown up playing it. I still play hockey. I’m on the depth chart of the women's national team, and I coach hockey as well. I’ve noticed a lot of issues within these experiences that I've had, and they’re related to the access and understanding of deaf identity and what that means. A lot of the players who are on the team with me, they don't often sign even though they are technically deaf. There are different levels of hearing and deafness on the team. The deaf community is not being represented very well, and there’s no one that has that platform to speak up. So, they just kind of accept it over and over. I kind of got punished because I did speak up about the lack of accessibility. It's just not how an organization should be run.

 I don't want hockey to look like that. I want it to feel more welcoming and more friendly for anyone who wants to play it. I want to change that perspective for people, and I want to continue playing as well.

I help set the standards for hockey districts to follow the Americans with Disabilities Act. I’m teaching them how to make accessibility right for them, and also how to set up the standard so that it becomes an established policy. I hope to attend law school in the near future to gain a deeper understanding of the legal ramifications of a lack of accessibility in sport. I'm not going to be playing sports forever, so it's important that the standards become part of the bylaws for the benefit of other deaf players and deaf coaches.

It's not only the deaf program in hockey. It's a worldwide problem that needs to be addressed everywhere. I’m trying to change the perspective and the way that society thinks about accessibility. I don't think it'll happen overnight, though, by any means.

WHAT ADVICE DO YOU HAVE FOR OTHER ATHLETES LOOKING TO USE THE POWER OF THEIR VOICES TO MAKE AN IMPACT?

 Don't be afraid to speak up. It’s simple. Just follow your gut, and if you see something that you think is not right, just speak up instead of ignoring it and turning the blinders on.

 I’m also on the Oregon Ravens of the WNFC, and I was very blunt with them. I told them that I wanted to play for the team, but I'm not going to play if they’re not going to provide me access. The team, the staff, the president, the leadership – wow!  Just amazing. They said, ‘No problem’, and they asked, ‘What do you need? How can we support you?’, and that was it. It was the first time in my entire life that I didn't get any resistance, any pushback to access. They were just willing to make it happen. They said, ‘Show us how to make it happen’, and so that's what I did. I had sign language interpreters during practice, as well as on road trips. Altogether, 25 years of my life playing sports, when I was young, in high school, and even coaching on the national level and playing on the national level, I almost never had sign language interpreters, until I joined the Oregon Ravens. So it’s been a pretty phenomenal experience.

 I look at my phone, and I see all these posts on social media on Twitter, Instagram. If it's sports related or politics related, it just doesn't matter. Most of the time, it's not accessible, and it's frustrating and exhausting. I want to get that information - the same as everyone else. So I ask them, ‘Could you post a transcript or could you add closed captioning?’ I did put a little pressure on the NHL, and I called out the Seattle Kraken. They hadn’t noticed and started adding captioning to their videos, but at the same time, it's not standard across the across the league.

 Social media is a huge platform - Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok. It's important to add accessibility elements like closed captioning or an ASL interpreter, even for Zoom meetings.

 I am just one person trying to make change, but one person can become many.

WHAT DOES ATHLETES’ VOICES MEAN TO YOU?

 Athletes’ Voices is something that really needs to be heard. I have noticed on social media and in general society, people will listen through sports. They'll listen to athletes who have big platforms or big followings. Athletes are often the people talking about topics that no one else will talk about.

 Last year, the WNBA really advocated for themselves, for social justice, and for Black Lives Matter on social media. I noticed other sports leagues started speaking up as well. So, I’ve seen the power of social media to spread the WNBA players’ viewpoints to everyone in the world and to speak up for those who can't speak up for themselves.

Athletes’ Voices is an important platform for us to share those kinds of experiences. We have such diverse voices, different life experiences as well as different perspectives as players and coaches. Bringing those perspectives into one platform helps give a bigger picture, a bigger idea of what we're trying to accomplish. It helps identify what we're missing, because one person can't be the voice for all. We need several people to share the message to advocate for change by making sure everyone around us in society is hearing that message.