Meet Charis Townsend, a popular deaf content creator and youth leader (BSL)

English transcript: 

Hello! I’m Charis (sign name) – I have two jobs, firstly I’m a youth leader at Manchester Deaf Club and I’m also a social media content creator.

I’m profoundly deaf in both ears, I have a progressive hearing loss that started around the age of five and deteriorated resulting in the profound loss I have now.

I use both British Sign Language and also spoken English.

It was two years ago that I started content creating over on Tik Tok and then later on I joined Instagram and did the same there. My thinking back then was that there needed to be more deaf awareness on social media. I didn’t see many British people teaching sign language or spreading Deaf awareness, there was only a few.

So I posted my first video just teaching the BSL alphabet, not thinking many people would be interested in my video but I thought I’d give it a go anyway.

I was amazed to see how many people were interested in my video and it encouraged me to carry on sharing videos that teach sign and I also like to share signed songs too in SSE.

The topics I mostly share videos on are about deaf awareness, autism awareness, and sometimes I just vlog in BSL about different things! I like to share positivity videos too in sign language.

I went to mainstream school but I found it really challenging because I didn’t have any support. Being deaf and autistic as well with no support was really hard there. Students and teachers would make fun of me there which made it ten times more difficult for me to enjoy education.

I enjoyed learning there so much but it was the people and their attitudes that made it difficult.

At mainstream school all of my friends were hearing and I was raised in a hearing family too so I was introduced to the deaf community later on in life through social media.

This was so lovely for me and I met so many people on social media platforms who I would sometimes meet up with in real life which was so nice to do!

I used to spend time looking for deaf events to attend or celebrations to meet deaf people at and now I get to go all over Britain to meet new deaf people! It’s so, so lovely – I feel so included, our communication is smooth and I feel like I can finally relax!

There are two main challenges for me as a deaf person. The first is accessing interpreters in medical settings. I’ve turned up to appointments where I’ve booked an interpreter but nobody has turned up. I do find it difficult to access interpreters in these sort of settings.

Secondly as I grew up orally and speak English clearly, some hearing people think that because I speak I must be able to understand them well too. It doesn’t mean that at all, I’m still profoundly deaf!

I speak clearly as I wasn’t born profoundly deaf, I was raised in a hearing non-signing family and I received lots of speech therapy and support with English too.

All deaf people have different life experiences, not all deaf people are the same. There is the assumption that just because you can speak well you must not really be deaf.

So those are the biggest challenges for me in every day life.

So what’s next for me? To be honest I don’t know! Through social media I get offered lots of different opportunities so I never know what to expect next which is really exciting!

Life is different every day for me which I love. Next year I may go to University or I may not, I’m not sure yet as you never know what’s around the corner.

But I definitely want to carry on promoting deaf awareness and autism awareness so let’s see where life takes me, it’s exciting!

You can find Charis over on Instagram @hipster.sunshine and Tik Tok @hipster_sunshine