Pete Buttigieg Goes Viral With ASL Response to Deaf Supporter

A video of gay presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg expressing his thanks to a supporter via American Sign Language (ASL) has gone viral.

Andy Pleasants, a deaf disability advocate, has been a big supporter of Buttigieg, and decided to create a sign name for Buttigieg, which he shared via Twitter.

“Given his new logo has the imagery of a bridge and ‘build bridges, not walls,’ his sign name is P ‘bridged’ across the chest to B!” Pleasants tweeted.

Though he’s been busy on the campaign trail, the presidential hopeful took the time to respond a week later.

A short video shows Buttigieg signing back to Pleasants: “Hi Andy — appreciate your support, thank you!”

The gesture meant a lot to Andy, as he noted the burden to reach across the communication divide often falls on deaf individuals.

And he’s not the only one who appreciated this small but loaded moment of Buttigieg reaching out.

Between this and Kirsten Gillibrand spending time with the drag community, it's nice to see Democratic candidates actually making an effort to reach out to American communities that still often get overlooked. It should be the norm, but maybe we are finally moving towards that.