Frisky Hands

 
Sure, social networking has changed the way we communicate, but for those who have trouble hearing or speaking in the first place, social networking offers them whole new world. This potential in communication inspired out web developer Michael Bamford, along with film producer Mich Lyon, to create Frisky Hands, a social networking website specifically aimed at the gay deaf community. “After meeting Martin Ritchie [of The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency fame] we came to understand the unique isolation many hearing-impaired members of the LGBTQ community face,” says Bamford, 35. “We went looking for a social networking site focused on the hearing-impaired LGBTQ community [but] none existed. [We were] determined that these friends deserved a whole lot better.”
 
Using a new combination of online chat, messaging and live-video systems called “the wave,” FriskyHands.com (launching June 1) will allow hearing-impaired users to make new hearing-impaired/interpreter friends around the world. “We’ve surveyed a broad spectrum of the deaf/interpreter LGBTQ community [and] one of the first things everyone mentioned was the desire to have a private online space to make new gay hearing-impaired/ASL friends,” Bamford says about the need for FriskyHands.com. “Many felt sharing online space with their family was too public and other gay sites did not cater to the unique needs of the hearing impaired.”
 
And the glowing response to Frisky Hands has already led them to start development on a second site, PositivelyFrisky.com, which will provide the HIV+ community a private space to interact without prejudice. “We have friends, lovers and business associates [who] belong to various groups within the broader gay community [who] have been marginalized to one degree or another,” Bamford says of his desire to create these “private spaces.” “We have been successful in building relationships with these individuals despite our differences and we wanted to help them find the joy in their lives that we have found in ours.”