I just finished reading Jodi’s blog, and I felt compelled to write a post in response.

The Deaf world is very much like the gay world. Gay by Nature, Proud by Choice is a slogan that us Deaf could borrow if you replace Gay with Deaf, because so many of us identify with that sentiment. You’re born with it, and it’s who you are.

For the Deaf Community, when we see a parent trying to have their deaf child implanted, many of us recoil, because it’s similar to the gay conversion pseudo-therapy that some parents put their gay kids through.

In fact, the whole Oral/ASL debate could be compared to the gay conversion/gay pride debate pretty well. On one hand, you have a faction who’s screaming, “It’s abnormal! There’s too much social stigma, and it’s unnatural! We gotta change it!” and you have the other faction going, “Variations in human nature is normal! Be proud of who you are and just accept yourself!”

Now we know that gay conversion doesn’t really work. There might be 1% where it does succeed, but then it’s probably because the person’s bisexual, and not gay. So when we see a deaf person get a CI, we feel that person’s lost to us, shoved back in the closet and a pretend hearing. Up to several years ago, the CI didn’t really work as advertised. So we had to sit back and watch in sorrow as that child or adult struggled for years, even decades before giving up, and accepting himself then joined us. Those people were taught to be ashamed of his/her deafness, that speaking and lip-reading is infinitely better than waving about your hands in public.

Just like how being straight is taught to be infinitely better than being gay.

And then we have ASL. Our language’s like how a dyke or a flamboyant gay would dress. We’re so obviously gay. We’re so obviously Deaf. We swagger around, swish our hips, wave our hands about in public and we’re not ashamed to show that we are X, and that offends the sensibilities of the Puritans! We just cannot have those outrageous displays! *hands over mouth!*

Then we just don’t know what to do with the proud oral deaf. They’re the bisexuals of our world.  Not quite in the hearing world, but not quite in the deaf world either. They’re in their own world. Just like the gays and straights, we want them to just make up their minds, goddamn it and pick one side! But it doesn’t work that way, does it?

Then we have the semi-closeted deaf. They don’t use ASL. They use other communication modes and we’re annoyed at their refusal to just come fully out of the closet. A deaf person using SEE is like a butch saying, “I’m a lesbian, yes.. but I’m still going to wear dresses.”

You know that this person is a butch and not a lipstick. You know this person is Deaf. Why don’t you just embrace yourself for who you are? Go full throttle and freely express who you are instead of being stifled in a social construct in what’s supposed to be normal, proper and acceptable? Screw what’s normal, proper and acceptable!

The LG community eventually came to accept the transgenders and bisexuals, and so will we when it comes to the oral deaf and CI’ers.

P.S. When that happens, can we borrow your flag? ;)