The DTPS aims to empower disabled and Deaf trans people by gathering and sharing knowledge about our needs, experiences, and priorities, particularly centering Black people and people of color. The knowledge of disabled and Deaf trans people has often been overlooked in research, making it harder to use data to tell our collective story. The DTPS seeks to fill in these gaps in research. It will give disabled and Deaf trans people tools to shift the narrative about our lives, advocate and organize, transform movement spaces, and build our collective power.
The DTPS survey is for anyone who meets all of the following criteria:
- Trans and/or nonbinary
- Disabled and/or Deaf
- Aged 18 or older
- Living in the United States (including states, territories, and military bases abroad)
We are defining “trans and/or nonbinary” in a broad and inclusive way to include anyone whose gender is different from the gender on their original birth certificate. This may include you even if you use a different term to describe yourself.
We also define “disabled and/or Deaf” broadly to include people who experience any form of disability, people with chronic illnesses, mental health conditions, and people who identify as Deaf, Deaf Plus, Deafblind, crip, Mad, sick, and ill, among many others.
The first section of the survey is “Tell Us About Yourself,” which asks for some basic information about you and your experiences.
Once you complete the “Tell Us About Yourself” section, you will have the chance to take five shorter parts of the survey on the following topics:
- Discrimination and Oppression
- Isolation and Connection
- Expressing Your Gender as a Deaf or Disabled Person
- COVID-19 and Extreme Weather
- Tell Us More (share anything else about your experience)
You can complete any or all of these parts of the survey, in any order you want. You can pick and choose the ones you are most interested in, or you can take all of them. We welcome and appreciate whatever participation feels good and right to you.
The surveys can be taken in ASL, Spanish, or English, in spoken or written forms. You can choose your language at the start of the survey.
We recognize your participation in the survey as an extension of trust and we take this seriously. We commit to protecting your privacy, safety and confidentiality in the following ways:
- Your answers are collected confidentially and in a way that they will not be connected to you as an individual. The specifics of what you share will be seen by the research team, Ericka, Sebastian, and Ma’ayan, along with Spanish translators and ASL interpreters, but not in a way that identifies who you are.
- This survey site itself will be protected with end-to-end encryption, meaning that the connection from your device to the website is confidential, obscuring URLs, cookies, and other sensitive data sent between your device and the website. This ensures information cannot be tampered with or modified.
- When the survey is finished and its findings are made available widely to community and movement organizations, the essence of what you shared will be reflected as a larger part of the whole, but any identifying information will be removed.
Yes! You can stop and save your responses at any point during any of the surveys, using your email address. When you log back in, you will be able to pick up where you left off. You can do this as many times as you need to while the survey is live. Once the survey closes, your email will be erased and disconnected from your survey responses.
Yes, you need to submit your survey responses but you only need to finish the “Tell Us About Yourself” part to be eligible to be entered into our raffle. At the end of each week, two email addresses will be chosen at random to receive a $100 gift card each. Gift cards will be emailed out to all winners at the end of each month that the survey is live. All you need to do is enter in your email address when prompted.
Your email will not be in any way linked to your survey responses and will only be used for purposes of contacting you about the raffle. If you share your email address with us in our gift card raffle, that data will not be stored or connected to the survey responses you made.
The survey will be live for three months. The first day and last day to take the survey is posted on the main page of the website. During this time you will be able to take any and all of the different pieces of the survey you wish to and will be able to enter into the raffle.
This is not only a survey of Deaf or disabled trans people–it is also a survey by and for us. We know that many researchers and organizations have failed to respect our communities when gathering data about us. Some researchers and organizations have taken our knowledge without giving back, tokenized us, or ignored our right to make our own decisions. We have made it our highest priority to do research differently, by valuing the people who share their knowledge and experiences with us, collaborating with other community members to craft the survey, and using the information we gather to empower Deaf and disabled trans people.
If you have any questions or concerns, please reach out at [email protected] and we will get back to you as soon as possible.
Most questions were developed by the DTPS team. Some of the questions were adapted from previous research on similar topics. Below is a list of the various resources we pulled from to develop the questions for this survey:
Williams, D.R., Yu, Y., Jackson, J.S., and Anderson, N.B. “Racial Differences in Physical and Mental Health: Socioeconomic Status, Stress, and Discrimination.” Journal of Health Psychology. 1997; 2(3):335-351.
Williams, D.R., González, H.M., Williams, S., Mohammed, S.A., Moomal, H, Stein, D.J. “Perceived Discrimination, Race and Health in South Africa: Findings from the South Africa Stress and Health Study.” Social Science and Medicine. 2008; 67:441-452.