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I really dislike it when people keep coming up with new terms that are supposed to be "offensive" or to mitigate offence. Especially in the deaf community. The terms diabled or hearing impaired are considered offensive today whereas when I was growing up, hearing impaired and hearing disabled were politically correct and nicer things to say than deaf.
Truth of the matter is, I get deaf people from time to time telling me how it's offensive that I talk about deafness as a form of a disability rather than as a culture, but that's the thing, I was born hard of hearing and was mainstreamed since. And yes I can sign and learning ASL, it doesn't mean I'm any less disabled than before. I'm not entrenched in deaf culture, I'm mainstreamed. I've never been a part of Deaf Culture and honestly every time I've tried I've felt alienated because of the cult like mentality of it.
When speaking of deafness as a disability, I'm able to discuss the needs of the deaf for accessibility and talk about the challenges we face in a hearing world, this allows me to get mutual respect, understanding and acceptance and overall makes my life easier. Even going as far as describing deaf with the lowercase D versus Deaf with an uppercase D is quite confusing for the hearing. And honestly calling deafness a culture also doesn't help us nor do us any favors.
But in order for the hearing to be able to give us the support we want and need, they have to be able to call it something, and getting butthurt about the name isn't going to help us any. Fuck your feelings and get over it. Culture isn't a need, it's merely a preference. Support however is a need, but your culture? Doesn't require support.
Think about it, how often is "deaf" touched on in regards to discussions about the disabled? It's because most disability groups and networks have lost interest in us in large part due to Deaf Culture cultists that have constantly nagged them to death that we're not disabled and it's our culture blah blah blah which ends up hurting folks like myself in the end. Because low and behold guess what nimrod? Maybe you don't actually speak for everyone that's deaf! Le gasp could it be we deaf people aren't a fucking hive mind and have individual needs and preferences and opinions and ideas and thoughts and cultures and all that?
We're deaf, and yes we're disabled. If we weren't disabled then how come we use the ever living hell out of disability payments, welfare and various other forms of support compared against say, an amputee?
When another deaf person is talking about deafness as a disability, maybe instead of trying to speak for them and tell them how they're wrong because muh culture, how about you let them speak for themselves because they have a different experience in life than you. You need to face the facts that some of us lost our hearing later in life, and some of us weren't as privileged as you to be raised signing and chest deep in a culture geared entirely around the disability.
What's the term feminists use a lot? Oh, right. Check your privilege. Some of us, myself included, would give our left nut to hear properly. I don't give two shits if you think it's not a disbability and I don't give two fucks if you think deaf culture is beautiful and glorious and believe (wrongly) that we can do it all. You're happy being deaf? Great, I'm glad for you, but I'm not happy being deaf and there isn't anything you can tell me that's going to change that fact.
You apparently don't have to deal with missing sound, you don't have to deal with not actually hearing music but rather just enjoy feeling it and being fine with that. You don't have to deal with wanting to hold conversations with someone you really love because your partner probably signs. You probably don't have that intense feeling of isolation and non-stop depression and constant thoughts of suicide because of how difficult it is to have long and meaningful conversations.
We get it, your life is rosey. Congrats. A lot of us weren't dealt that hand in life and are unhappy and consider deafness a disability. I'm deaf, and I consider being deaf a disability, because it is. If you think otherwise, you're welcome to buzz off and take that deaf culture bullcrap with you, I'll have none of that stuck up, cultist like crap. And if deafness isn't a disability, you're welcome to stop receiving disability payments, jackass.
