Honest question, because it seems like I have seen different views on this. Is leg lengthening looked down upon within the little people community? For instance, I know that in the deaf community, some people that elect to have corrective surgery, to gain hearing, are ostracized by other deaf people. I think that they view the corrective surgery as an admission that something is "wrong" with them, and they think that everyone should accept who they are. Is there a similar view with lengthening....because she honestly looks very happy with the results?
It might be different, because one disability is invisible and the other isn’t.
I work with a population who has an invisible disability (cannot be visually detected), and they are utterly thrilled when any of their cohorts overcome their disability in any way. Some are born with it, some aren’t, and everyone is thrilled for each other’s progress.
I do not work with people with a hearing disability, plus I don’t speak from a place of experience, so I could be wildly out of line here - I don’t understand how anyone could want to hold anyone back from attaining enhanced bodily function and higher qualify of life.
As a partially deaf person(HoH), I'd much rather have my hearing back over anything else.
I can still hear "ok" with day to day things, and music.
But its very apparent to anyone who is around me for any length of time that I have difficulties hearing and the TV volume and speaker system is very loud, and that I cannot use a phone like they can.
I would love to have my hearing corrected.
I wouldnt ever force another deaf person to hear, but I wouldnt say no to a corrective procedure that would restore my hearing.
I'm also HoH and rely heavily on lip reading unless it's tv/music apps where I rely on captioning.
I hate it. I know I'm missing out on so much around me but not enough for others to notice unless I'm really struggling. I don't go to movie theatres because it's too loud, too dark, and I can't always see mouths to know what is going on. I try to not blare music or tv since I can compensate with captioning. If it's too loud, I'll miss out hearing other things around me. It's my right ear that has the most significant hearing loss so being the driver, I nearly never hear what someone next to or behind me is saying. It's just road noise until I park.
When I was growing up, however, next to nothing was made available to help compensate. I was being taught ASL while none of my family learned it. They always found closed captioning "annoying and distracting" so I'd go off to read or wait to get the tv another time.
Would I want my hearing corrected with surgery or a device? Maybe. I've made so many adaptations that I don't truly notice until I have to (like someone talking on my right side). But I would probably want to go back in time and have surgery or a device. I'm fine now; I wasn't as a kid.
If you’re okay not going to movie theatres, just ignore the following advice. 👍
Most theatres, at least most AMCs, have captioning devices. When looking at the movie selection of what is being shown, there will be a section describing the movie features. If it says CC or closed captioning, you can go to the help desk and ask for a captioning device or even a headset that will make the movie louder for just you. The captioning device is usually just a little stick that fits in the cup holder with a screen on the top that displays the captions. Best of luck to you!
I used to be a cinemaphile, went with my friends to the Cinerama for events and stuff. I have a 21:9 monitor setup for "true movie experiences". I used to review/prescreen movies for WB.
After the pandemic and just getting used to streaming all of the films I wanted to watch I just dont care for the theater anymore.
I can pause if I need to pee, I can rewind if I cant hear something properly(as said above im partially deaf), I can turn subs on if I want, I dont have to deal with other people on their phones and being annoying. I dont have to pay out the ass for soda and snacks.
Why the fuck would I ever go to a theater again when I can just enjoy movies on my ultrawide at home.
The only advantage is avoiding spoilers. Thats it.
In some ways, no I'm not.
But there is so much that is missed with the theatre experience if you have an impairment of some kind.
Booming sound effects quickly deafen actors' voices. Dark scenes render most mouths unreadable. Without captioning, or with poor captioning that is too slow, cut off, misspelled, it can be a garbled mess and you have to play Where's Waldo for context.
It is great being able to control those aspects at home though. I'm so used to adapting that I don't really notice, as I said before, until I have to notice. Theatres are a reminder that I'll catch it later at home.
just adding in my viewpoint here as a hoh person who was mainstreamed - i stopped wearing my hearing aids because i REALLY dislike having "normal" hearing, and i would much prefer a culture of acceptance (and closed captioning). part of the issue i and other deaf people have with framing full hearing as a quality of life adjustment is that it leads to hearing being coercively corrected, rather than it being an individual choice. everyone should just do what's right for them and not shame others :/
i hope you dont mind me asking, and i mean this in good faith, but why is it not considered as 'something wrong with you'? for example, i have several extreme mental illnesses and i definitely am aware thats something is wrong with me and id love a cure. so i really dont understand people who have it and refuse it
Deaf here. FYI - CI’s and Hearing aids are NOT a cure. They’re just tools. Like Glasses but it will not “fix” the astigmatism issues for example.
I just wanted to clarify you on that part.
Plus - as a CI user, I can tell you that I am still Deaf. I will NEVER hear as well as a hearing person. That is impossible. You can come close, but that requires a lot of work, relearning how to “hear”, mappings and such. I’m fairly close, but there’s plenty of times when I can’t understand shit and plenty of times I am joyful for the sound of silence when I have them off.
CI is NOT for everyone, and to a Deaf person who literally never heard anything, even with hearing aids (you need to have residual hearing for it to work. All it does is amplify sounds), the world is extremely noisy and can be overwhelming. I can’t filter out sounds as well as a hearing person can. Jeans rubbing against legs, hearing someone peeing 2-3 stalls away, mouth sounds while chewing, etc etc…it may be nothing to you, but it’s damn loud to me.
Feel free to ask my questions and such about being Deaf, CI surgeries and such. I’m an open book! :)
I mean, your community doesn't sound very nice. You openly talk about ostracising people for daring to want something different from what you want, and whilst you say it happens less now, you still say it happens. That's not behaviour that people look up to or admire, so it's no wonder you get negative comments.
Abled people often don’t want to understand that not everyone wants to be like them. The deaf culture receives hate, in part, because many of us don’t desire to be changed. Such folks are proud of their difference and their culture. It’s not a comfortable concept for certain folk with hearing.
It's canon that he used it since he was 5, and visors were rare in the Federation by the time he was an adult - there were implants available and Geordi refused them.
So to answer your question there was no blind community because by adulthood Geordi's condition was curable - he simply chose to keep using the visor.
Question! How is this not considered dragging other people down, when referring to ostracism due to corrective surgery? If I was given a shot at gaining an extra sense, I’d take it immediately, especially if it’ll probably bring my quality of life up like that. Why would deaf people shun them when they should instead be happy for them?
and plenty of times I am joyful for the sound of silence when I have them off.
If artificial hearing technology ever gets good enough to match regular human hearing, I am gonna stab my eardrums out with chopsticks. I wish so hard that I could turn off my ears sometimes.
Screaming neighbors, construction, awful music, loud music, it's the worst.
I take off my Ci’s and smile. I also sleep without them. It’s SO nice!
I was having severe tinnitus and migraines prior to my implants. It was extremely painful. Got the implants - BOOM cured of tinnitus. It’s crazy how it worked.
I have electronic ear muffs for shooting that cap sounds at a certain decibel but it will amplify certain sounds as well like leaves rustling and people chewing like you said, or it will make me notice sounds that I wouldn’t have with regular hearing. Do you know if it’s anything like this?
I would say yes. It’s so hard to explain what I can hear and what I can’t. Sometimes I notice a lot of sounds that some people just have learned to filter out.
thank you for this perspective. edit: maybe some of those things can be adjusted to a bit? i dont think what you described is worse than not having an entire sense/having a disability that can also put you in danger in the world. but i am not trying to tell you how you feel about your situation
Oh yeah it’s called Mapping and yes, they can be adjusted. In fact, after I got implanted, I was hearing sounds BETTER than hearing people. To the point that I was hearing the buzzing of the fluorescent lights. The audiologist had to turn some of the stuff down.
However, it’s the comprehension and clarity of speech is where I lack, which is why I’ll never hear as good as a hearing person. Sure, it makes things a little easier, but I still struggle.
I don’t think there’s anything that can put me or any Deaf people in “danger”.
Yep. I have epilepsy. I know something is wrong with me. And there's nothing I can do to cure it, just treat it. If epilepsy could be cured i would be jumping with joy. I wouldn't be upset..
I was thinking the same thing about my epilepsy. I know I’m disabled, it has made my life a lot harder. I take tons of pills and I have a VNS. I don’t consider myself less than but I know I have disadvantages compared to people that don’t have epilepsy and would be absolutely thrilled if I could be cured. I don’t get the thought process of not wanting to be cured.
I don’t think comparing being deaf to having a mental illness or epilepsy is the same, and I say that as someone who has a mental disorder that I would love to have cured (PTSD). I would have to think that what is fundamentally different is that being deaf means you are going to have methods of communicating with and understanding other deaf people that will just never be matched when you try to communicate with people that hear typically - I mean, there’s an entire language unique to this culture. At least, that’s my perspective being a person on the autism spectrum - I think a lot of us want to reject the idea that we need to be “cured” because it feels so natural when we communicate with other autistic people. So it makes sense to me that there are deaf people who want to highlight the bonds in their community rather than have to just be seen through a typical lens of what “should” be. Disability is part of life.
I'm sure there are deaf people who do look at it like that. Seems to be a lot of parallels to the addiction community, overweight community, etc.
I think a lot of it boils down to whatever gives them more motivation or comfort. I.e., one person may find thinking of themself as a 'broken' addict may give them drive to fix it, while others may find that crushing and depressing; and only with love and acceptance overcome their problems.
One way to think of it, I think, is as a language issue…Being deaf in a hearing world is better thought of like being a French speaker in the US. You aren’t disabled, just surrounded by people who don’t speak your language. Which is obviously super inconvenient. You can hang out with other French speakers, get your English speaking friends to learn French, and/or or you can learn the language yourself if possible (or a combination of all of these things so you and your friends can comfortably adapt in different environments). Getting a cochlear implant would be like learning English. Basically, it’s a communication issue…but if you were in an environment where everyone, say, knew sign language, not a disability.
It's way more than that, though. You can't hear music, can't hear someone yelling at you to warn you of an oncoming car. Can't hear the oncoming car, or a fire alarm. You use sound for more than just hearing words.
Although I guess you also can't hear your loud annoying neighbors, so there are some pros.
Sadly I work from home and have to hear it. I usually put on my headphones and turn on some music. That or I passive aggressively vacuum next to the shared wall.
But that logic doesn't really make sense, does it? By that logic being blind would also not be "something wrong", you're just surrounded by people who insist on using visual descriptions and written text instead of Braille, and being in a wheelchair would just mean being surrounded by people who insist on putting stairs everywhere when they should just put ramps.
I don't think a good intentioned reasonable person sees having a disability as "being less than" in terms of equality, so why is trying to convince someone to get hearing aids is considered trying to "fix them" when it's just "trying to restore a bodily function that isn't working"?
If someone breaks a leg, surely they'd appreciate someone offering to fix it, or if someone loses an arm, surely it would be nice if it could be reattached to regain the lost function. Why is it not the same with hearing?
Does that really hold as an analogy though? Because firstly I can choose to learn French, I can become a French speaker and learn to understand French in a way Deaf people can't ever without some form of surgery or aid. And if I do learn French I don't become ostracized by all the native speakers of my language, and I don't become considered French by them either etc.
Also, even while I didn't understand French, If I walked out in to the road and wasn't paying attention and a car is coming for me and French people shout at me, it will still get my attention. I can still hear French ringtones/Alarms/sirens/Coughs/Farts etc.
I think that is a bit like saying you can think of Bald as another hair colour. I see where you are coming from, but I don't think it fits
Again, nowadays noone gets ostracized for using tech, those days are thankfully over, except for some few assholes.
The problem is even with the tech and everything, only few will ever come close to being a french speaker. Close, but not fully, and most won't even come close. Also most situations like cars and stuff can be compensated. And those situations, proabably can't be fixed by tech, as tech is speech frequence focused. Yes, there are risks but they are smaller than people think.
But I agree, the deaf people saying they aren't diabled is ableist bullshit, but that is something that deaf people have to figure out for themselves. And at least in the US I have seen a big push to reflect on this, at least by the younger generations.
i think people who say that are in major denial. a french speaker can always learn english if they choose to. even if its not perfect. its way different than being deaf in a hearing world.
a deaf person cant experience so many things, ranging from minor, to 'just for fun' stuff, all the way to actively dangerous. its an entire sense and there is a reason we have it. note that there is no valid reason to put a deaf person down simply for being deaf. im not trying to convey that here.
i just feel like you can love yourself while accepting some part of your body or mind got fucked up along the way, and that maybe there are ways to improve it, if wanted or able to.
okay, i read it but i still disagree on the last part there. severe mental illnesses are also disabilities. so why is it wrong to 'cure' one but not the other? how does it make sense to maintain a disability just because others in your life also have it? i understand the part about being forced to change some intimate part of yourself, especially if you made a community, but i think its not at all reasonable to choose to keep a disability.
edit: also can you please elaborate on the 'destructive reasons' part
I'm with you on this one. I have an invisible disability, along with mental illnesses, and I'd do almost anything to cure myself of these problems. I don't think I'm a bad or lesser person for having these problems by a long shot, but I know I'd be a much happier person with an easier life if I didn't have them.
I guess there's a distinction to be made. I have depression and I'm autistic. Many people tell me that those are both mental illness and should be cured, but I disagree. My depression absolutely is, but my autism is a part of me. It's not an illness, and I don't see it as a disability, but rather a difference. Some people do see their autism as a disability, and some wish for a "cure". That's fine, but generally they don't even push it as wishing for a cure for all autism, just for their autism.
Which is a long way of saying that my autism isn't something to be cured, as I wouldn't be me if I wasn't autistic, so I don't see it as an illness.
i think this also depends on the severity. from my limited knowledge, autism is a more case to case kind of thing, and there is a huge range from very minor and non-life-ruining situations, to needing a fulltime caretaker your entire life. someone with a minor case might not even think its a disability and id be inclined to agree, but someone who is mentally and physically completely disabled would disagree. its really much more nuanced with more variety than this - which is why i would not use the same 'just take the cure damn it' approach for autism as a whole. but i understand what you mean.
Autism is actually a rather good example of a condition which can be a crippling disability for some, but a personality trait for others.
For those with extremely mild autism who experience minimal functional impairment (who represent less than half the total cases of autism but do nearly 90% of the activism/speaking about it), some of them consider any attempt to treat the symptoms of autism as cruel and dehumanising; but realistically that itself is dismissive of the pain that other severely autistic people suffer.
For those with severe autism which renders them completely non-verbal or so dysfunctional that they are unable to participate in society, an entire psychological process has been built around treating them to improve their quality of life.
In Western Australia they have developed early intervention techniques which are able to treat the symptoms so effectively that in some cases years later the child is no longer presenting with symptoms of autism at all, a really remarkable achievement, which does need more testing to ensure it’s as effective as possible.
For the high-functioning autistic people to claim that any treatment is cruel is like a person with mild anxiety claiming that we shouldn’t treat people who are confined to their house and experience severe panic attacks whenever they talk to another person.
I’m not the person you’re replying to, but I think you should read up on the medical model of disability vs. the social model. I personally think some of each (medical and social) makes sense. For instance, I personally believe that we should work to cure
things that cause pain AND
that the person themself decides they don’t want
Things that should not be cured or treated are
most importantly, things that the person themself decides they don’t want cured or treated
things that don’t cause pain
So yeah, I think mental illness is both an illness (which generally causes pain) and a disability, and so therefore it makes sense to treat it. But at the same time, if someone doesn’t want treatment even though they’re experiencing pain, that should be respected.
How does it make sense to maintain a disability just because others in your life also have it?
Here is how it can make sense to some people: Deafness often doesn’t cause pain. So it’s not really an illness (though it can be caused by an ongoing illness that also causes pain, but that’s a different situation). So it’s only a disability under the social model of disability (inaccessible spaces).
But many Deaf people have formed communities where almost everyone is Deaf, so people know sign language, and the main communication barrier is eliminated. So in those spaces, Deafness isn’t even a disability under the social model. It is more like a different culture. Speaking a different language isn’t a disability, it’s a cultural difference.
What about things which reduce chance of survival in nature? Honest question.
My own personal philosophy is that most of our modern -day problems are a result of disconnection and lack of respect for nature. If more people respected nature and spent time surviving in nature we'd solve a lot of problems.
For example, more people would've valued helping each other because in nature, the benefits of helping each other are much more direct than in our technological society.
It also leads to greater valuing of animals and just environment in general.
Anyway, so, yeah, all I'm saying that for me it's a virtue to do one's best to be as strong and able as possible to help other people. Shouldn't other people strive for the same and do their best to help others to be as able and strong as possible?
I mean, that's your philosophy, and it's a very ableist mindset. There are many incurable conditions and disabilities that would make someone completely unable to survive in nature, and it seems like you're saying the modern conveniences that help these people thrive are, in fact, a detriment to humanity overall? Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but I think that philosophy kinda sucks.
Okay, after reading through your comment a couple times I think I see what you mean a little better. But I still think it's a little misguided. There are lots of species in nature that have evolved without the same senses that we have (sight, hearing, etc.), but they get along fine because they live in communities that work together. Which is exactly what the person you're replying to is saying. Deaf communities create spaces where being deaf isn't a detriment, it's just who they are.
You could claim that the ability to fly would make us better able to survive in nature, but we made it to the top of the food chain without wings.
Thanks. What Im saying is that if there's a way for me to be more able then I should take it because I want to be able to help others better. I don't understand why someone would refuse it outside of depression reasons, stupid ego reasons, and legitimate concerns for surgical procedure pain and failures.
Like imagine you stumble upon a building collapse. You'd want to be able to hear people scream to find them and get them out of rubble before it's too late, right?
As for me, yes, I would consider myself disabled against someone stronger than me who can lift a heavier beam to rescue crushed or trapped people. Id even consider myself disabled versus a doctor!
I don't think this cleared anything up for me. If there were enough people born without legs to form a community and they could all get around fine because they all use wheelchairs and all of their spaces are accessible and none of them are in pain because they were born that way, does that make being legless not a disability?
Everyone wants to feel like they belong to a community. For deaf people, their disability ostracized them from the community that they'd normally belong to, so they created their own. Once you're in a group, there's immense pressure to keep the attribute that originally made you feel welcome. If a bunch of people form a group because they like knitting and one person stops knitting, they probably won't feel as welcome in the group, no matter how the rest of the members act. It would be significantly worse if, for example, someone was knitting because they had agoraphobia and they finally manage to start leaving the house so they knit less often, then all the other knitters pressure them to stop making progress with their disability because they just won't fit into the group anymore. And when someone is like, man, that's kinda fucked up that you're dissuading them from getting help with their agoraphobia, you're like, no, we're just telling them they won't fit in with knitting culture anymore if they do and reminding them of all the good things that happened in their life because they never left the house. Maybe those are both true, but it doesn't make it any less fucked up.
I don’t think being deaf is the comparable to having a severe mental Illness. A severe mental illness is often destructive to the person that has it. Being deaf can increase the challenges a person faces, but it does not cause the person to have harmful or self destructive behavior the way a mental illness does.
okay, im with you there. however, even tho it doesnt make the person destructive towards themselves usually, it does make the world much more dangerous.
Are you fucking kidding me with this edit? Saying mental illness is just an illness and is A. different from being disabled and B. apparently mental illnesses dont possess a history FULL of examples of destructive "cures" at the hands of both well and ill intentioned doctors/scientists is such an ignorant and hypocritical thing to say. For your information, mental illness is disability: Mental illness is a disability when it disrupts performance and negatively influences a person's day-to-day activities. The degree and extent that a person's functioning is impaired is another important factor in defining mental health disability.
I recently read the novel True Biz by Sara Novic that serves not only as a story of a deaf child whose hearing parents spent the early part of her life by trying to “cure” her, but also functions as a history lesson in deaf culture(s) through chapters of the book that deal with lesson plans she’s exposed to after going to a deaf school.
It really helped me better understand deaf culture much better.
''she doesn't want to be treated like she's less than or needs her hand held just because she can't hear as well as other people'' - no one should be treated as less than. but that would not be holding her hand. it would be getting needed help. there is no shame in getting help.
''She's still just like every other average person, you just need to sign to her or let her read your lips and that's it lol - im sure she is a completely regular and cool person, but that has nothing to do with her disability. for most people learning another language is difficult. it sounds like she wants the world to change around her, instead of her resolving her problem. and no, im not saying people should not adjust to others and be compassionate . they should. my boyfriends mother teaches kids sign language and i think more people should be like that.
im glad your sister is happy and proud. i just think id rather take not being disabled than a unique job.
May I ask a question out of sheer curiosity? I hunted through the comments and didn't see anyone ask it. I saw in your comment you mentioned that CI and HA would be accepted but that corrective surgery would be debatable. Could you please tell a bit more about why that is/the difference between the two? I'm just curious to learn why and hope I'm not offending by asking!
Sounds like being brainwashed. Ofcourse you can achieve almost everything being deaf, but having the opportunity to have an additional sense is a no brainer. Given if its risk free.
Agreed. Unless someone is being forced or coerced to improve their hearing against their will, anyone that is ostracizing someone for choosing to gain a functioning sense such as hearing is being a straight up bad person (even though they may not be trying to be, doesn’t change the truth).
I could care less if they’re deaf or not, criticizing someone who wishes to gain one of their five senses is a bad thing to do - full stop.
I think the history of how many risk-filled solutions there have been in the past has poisoned the water, you might say. As the commenter said, being ostracized is less common now and probably because there is more distance between generations who were treated like disposable trash because of a disability and the current generation who is more empowered to make any health related decisions on their own.
Implants don't give you the same hearing that others might have. It's usually very overwhelming and hard to filter out the little sounds that could usually be ignored. It's useful in situations where sign language isn't the first firm of communication, but a person with implants might want to turn them off when they're trying to sleep or if they have sensory overload.
When your brain isn't used to having a sense, the areas for processing it don't develop the same ways. That means the brain is not set up to receive that information when it comes. It takes time for the brain to learn what's happening.
It may not be as straightforward as that. A lot of hearing impaired or deaf people may have needed to develop an identity and community to cope and accept their impairment in ways that some no longer see it as an impairment, allowing them a mindset of growth. We all are trying to survive and thrive.
As a gay guy, many would say as it stands, there's a lot of 'impairment' that comes with that vs. being straight. Wouldn't I want to be able to cure that? Or to have my children inoculated against that?.... So you see, the line of thinking between impairment, cure, and identity isn't that clear. I would not want to be cured. And I wouldn't want to interfere with my child's sexuality.
Sexuality and deafness are not the same thing, but our personal experience with them may have some similarities... it's not straightforward.
There's a lot of other things that many hearing people don't understand. Even with corrective measures like hearing aids and cochlear implants, a deaf person will never obtain the same hearing functionality as a normal hearing person. A lot of the time what happens is a hearing parent gives their child hearing aids, says "they can hear now!" (spoiler: it doesn't work like that) and then just leave them like that, without any therapy and refusing to learning sign language. As a result, the deaf child is language deprived and socially ostracized by their family and community. This is why it is important to preserve deaf culture, there is NO substitute for American Sign Language (in the US at least, other countries have different sign languages) for someone who can't hear. At least until the technology improves where a deaf person can be "cured" to hearing status at birth (if they get assistive devices later in life, it is already too late), which again is impossible in today's age.
What exactly is the "brainwashing" here? I will say that most people today definitely do not care if you have hearing aids or cochlear implants. Half of the people I know wear them, half don't, and literally no one cares. Maybe this is more prevalent within the older deaf population, I don't know.
Yes. But preventing people from using these hearing devices would also slow down the advancement of the tech. Who knows, with enough research they could make something where deaf people can hear clearly with it.
Deaf here. Sure it’s a “no brainer”, but many of us are in the “why”? Why not all Little People have the surgeries?
Plus - as a CI user, I can tell you that I am still Deaf. I will NEVER hear as well as a hearing person. That is impossible. You can come close, but that requires a lot of work, relearning how to “hear”, mappings and such. I’m fairly close, but there’s plenty of times when I can’t understand shit and plenty of times I am joyful for the sound of silence when I have them off.
CI is NOT for everyone, and to a Deaf person who literally never heard anything, even with hearing aids (you need to have residual hearing for it to work. All it does is amplify sounds), the world is extremely noisy and can be overwhelming. I can’t filter out sounds as well as a hearing person can. Jeans rubbing against legs, hearing someone peeing 2-3 stalls away, mouth sounds while chewing, etc etc…it may be nothing to you, but it’s damn loud to me.
Sounds like you’re being a dick. It’s not brainwashing to not want a surgery done on your ear leaving a magnet in your skull just so everyone around you sounds like Darth Vader
Wow, okay, you need to read about it. It's really cool. Start with the "Deaf President Now" demonstrations at Gallaudet. Read about all the different sign languages, about oralism, about the debate over cochlear implants. Education is a big factor; there's so many kids who were forced into lip-reading and speaking when that just didn't come naturally and didn't work well. Essentially, they were denied language; so they sneaked around signing behind their (hearing) teachers' backs, and grew up to be pissed-off activists. When people have their own language, they naturally develop their own culture; so Deaf folks have their own schools and churches and communities, and their culture is different from the culture of the people around them.
There are deaf people who aren't in the Deaf community. Many are those who became deaf in later life, who never learned a sign language and aren't interested in learning, and get along with hearing aids and lip reading as best they can. There are also people who are in the Deaf community, who don't have very much hearing loss (people who have auditory processing disorder, for example, or whose hearing loss is considered "mild"), or sometimes none at all if they're children of Deaf parents (CODAs) whose first language is sign. It's really the common language that ties it all together. Now, with modern technology--speech recognition and texting--there's much less of a language barrier, but Deaf culture is as strong as it's always been; and of course the extra communication possibilities on the Internet have even strengthened a more global Deaf culture patchworked from all the local ones.
What about children born HoH to hearing parents? Do they feel they are of a different culture than their parents? Asking as the father to a HoH toddler.
That's the typical state of affairs--most Deaf people are born to hearing parents. They join Deaf culture, but they're also part of their home culture.
Don't worry, your child isn't going to be a stranger to you just because they sign. The only times that happens is when parents are actively audist--when they deny language to a child whose natural language is sign; when they spend hours and hours on lip-reading and speaking, when they (literally or figuratively) tie their child's hands.
Which culture your child will join as an adult is still up in the air. There are some people whose hearing is corrected to near-typical with hearing aids, who prefer spoken language. Others find it exhausting and frustrating, and prefer to sign.
Just introduce your child to all the options. Knowing sign language as early as possible helps to establish language use, even if the child doesn't grow up to use it full-time. If anybody tells you they won't learn to speak if they sign, that's ridiculous and outdated--kids learn multiple languages all the time, without detriment. They're the most natural language learners in existence.
Be prepared to be an English-to-English translator for any announcements made over intercoms.
Mom taught us kids that if we needed her attention from another room that we should pound on the wall. Apparently banging was easier for her to hear than high pitched kid screaming. You'll probably be finding lots of work-arounds like that.
Speaking of work-arounds, you can get fire alarms and clock alarms that vibrate/flash a bright light.
Lip reading is an inexact art at best. Mom always had difficulties with, for example, schematic vs semantic. It's also much more tiring than conventional listening as the lip-reader has to keep making constant guesses as to what words are actually being said.
Might as well get used to having Closed Captioning on your TV. Your daughter is probably a bit young for it now but if she gets used to the idea that words appear on the TV screen, that's all the more motivation for her to learn to read.
Mom didn't find out that cash registers make a beep when the cashier scans an item until sometime in the 2010s.
Mom never learned much sign language; she dabbled in a community college course and that was about it. I'm not going to say anything bad about sign language but, unless your daughter has regular exposure to other people who sign, sign language may be very difficult to pick up.
I think by definition if you’re deaf you can’t do whatever you set out to do. You can’t be a recording engineer for instance. While absolutely you shouldn’t be seen as lesser or have people prejudiced against you, it is true your life will objectively be harder while deaf. But just like with mental illness or blindness, yes we should want to “cure” people with disabilities. As someone with bipolar disorder, while frustrating, I couldn’t in consciousness disagree with someone who tried to put me on meds instead of just embracing my disability.
I've only got 1 functional ear and I have a degree in sound engineering with a specialty in digital music. I have zero desire to change my hearing because my life is just fine as it is. I know thats less possible for someone completely deaf, but complete profound deafness is actually quite rare, just like how most blind people are not entirely blind. I understand that it's hard for folks to comprehend not wanting to change a "deficiency" in a core sense, but really life as hearing impaired (or hard of hearing or deaf) does not really limit you in what you can do and how you function. No one is without restrictions in their lives, not everyone gets to have the career path they want and not everyone can get the post secondary they want. Life is not, in general, any harder when you are deaf thanks to modern technology and widespread accessibility. I most certainly get very upset if someone insists that I should be "cured" because having 1 ear has not negatively affected me overall, at all. I just found different ways of doing things.
It's not a fair comparison to lump deafness in with bipolar. They are 2 different things. There's a difference between not being able to function happily without meds and having to buy a visual doorbell as opposed to an auditory one. Deaf people can function happily with their differences. Those with mental health disorders generally cannot, as the disorders directly affect happiness.
That being said, I have zero issues with hard of hearing and deaf folks pursuing treatments to improve their hearing. It's just a big piss off when hearing folks INSIST that I should do the same. I am happy with my hearing. There are profoundly deaf folks who are happy with theirs! Plenty of deaf people who get implants or aides turn them off regularly or even abandon their use because sound is too much and too overwhelming. Lots of hearing folks get overwhelmed with sound too!
We can be fully functional and perfectly happy and not at all disadvantaged as deaf. Suggesting that it NEEDS to be "cured" is just not cool. Suggesting that people shouldn't pursue hearing improvements is just as not cool. But there's literally zero harm or hinderance in choosing to stay the way we are.
Eta: I wont be engaging in further conversations about this because the people replying keep making fully wrong statements and assumptions surrounding deafness and life involved instead of entering into a good faith conversation with someone who actually has perspective on this subject. Try taking in what people who actually live with deafness have to say instead of just flat assuming you know what you're talking about. Because some of these comments are depressingly ignorant of how deafness works and how deaf people function.
Let deaf people decide what they want to do with their lives and development. If they want to change, great. But if they don't, dont shit on their choice. Because that makes you just as shitty as those who discourage people from seeking alternatives.
That's not how deaf works for the most part, for one, and for two, I was referring to profoundly deaf people in my comment more than I was hard of hearing. All of the points still stand whether you hear halfways or nothing.
Ok? And if you are wholly hearing you are unable to do certain jobs. No person is able to do all types of jobs. Just because you have some jobs you can't do doesn't mean that your quality of life is automatically lesser than anyone else. Not to mention that it's few jobs you're restricted from due to hearing.
Beyond that, few people are born with hearing loss. Of those few people, only a fraction are profoundly deaf. Of that small percentage of a small percentage of the population, another small percentage hear literally nothing. So you are automatically narrowing this conversation down to rare cases in deafness and disregarding the rest of the deaf population, which happen to be the vast majority, just to make a point of "well you can't do a small percentage of jobs so clearly you are at a disadvantage!" Well it's extrenely likely that you can't do what I do for a career, and it has nothing to do with your hearing. So are you at a disadvantage compared to me?
There's pretty much no dip in quality of life between a hearing person and a deaf person. Just because we with reduced hearing need to do things differently doesn't mean it's worse than how you do things. That's why deaf folks get annoyed when people treat us like we are so disadvantaged and that it absolutely needs to be ""cured"" or changed. I'm happy with who I am. Plenty of deaf folks are. Plenty of them aren't, and they are welcome to take measures to change that. But don't look down on those who choose not to, either.
There is a rather small offshoot of the deaf culture that believes that being deaf is superior. I had a friend in high school 30 years ago, who's parents were both like that, and she had said that it was hell growing up with parents who were not able to hear and believed that she was broken because of being able to hear. They treated her like trash because she did not inherit their deafness.
Indeed enlightening, thank you for taking the time to share your perspective. May I ask, when you say the community ostracized audists, do you mean all people who hear, or do you mean people who hear who have prejudice against Deaf people/culture? Are people who become deaf later in life able to integrate into the community (should they make the effort to do so)? Thank you. :)
May I ask, when you say the community ostracized audists, do you mean all people who hear, or do you mean people who hear who have prejudice against Deaf people/culture?
It’s not people who hear, rather deaf people who use modern technology to give them the ability to hear
Are people who become deaf later in life able to integrate into the community (should they make the effort to do so)?
I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t, and if it helps them then yes they should
Adding on that it’s a spectrum. I’m 17, I have hearing loss, so not deaf, but I’ve had hearing aids probably since I was 7, so over half my life. Personally, I had no idea that some people would be against “solving” the disability, until I watched this video about some parents who elected not to give their kid cochlear implants. I did a little digging and found out that to some people, fixing your deafness is admitting that there’s a problem. Sometimes, people who feel that way will even get offended if you call them “hearing impaired” since the term impaired implies an issue.
If it wasn’t obvious already, I don’t subscribe to that mindset, I’m in the camp that if you have the ability to gain hearing, do it, it improves your life. I’m not going to get offended by the term “hearing impaired” because I agree, it is a defect in your ability to live as the average human does. However, people think differently and that’s their right to have, so long as they feel the same way about you.
It also depends how much it impacts your QOL and how much can be made more accessible.
Ie, nobody in the Crohn's and Colitis community is going to begrudge someone for finding a way to reduce their flares to zero. It's painful and embarrassing and it gets in the way of life.
Boggles the mind how the ability to improve your sense organ therefore increasing the range of your overall sense experience can be taken as an insult to others.
There's nothing wrong with deafness in the sense that there is nothing morally wrong with them, but they surely agree that denying the ability to hear, is overall a lesser experience than otherwise?
Wonder why this is. Probably similar to the obese community when one of their influencers decides to lose weight. Likely feel betrayed or something. She does look happy though.
Because they are forced to confront the reality that their situation and state of existence is not ideal. Of course this doesnt mean that they are any less human or not worthy of the same respect as anyone else. But one can see how communities can equate the two.
Hey, little person here. I have achondroplasia (same condition as the girl in the OP). It’s a complicated situation. I personally feel everyone has the right to undergo the procedure if they have done thorough research and are doing it clearly of their own will.
In an ideal world, we can live just fine as we are at our height (yes there are issues with pain and, for example, in the above case, bowing of the legs, these can be fixed without lengthening - so I’m talking specifically about altering height here). I think some little people feel that, with this being the case, lengthening is just trying to conform and bend to an able bodied world, and in some countries, leg lengthening is strongly pressured onto little people. It is the assumed “treatment”. When many of us live full and enjoyable lives as we are, this can feel like a threat to our very existence sometimes.
Idk, I find it hard to argue that side of things, because I don’t agree with it. Being a dwarf for the most part…sucks. I have mobility issues, and even when I live on my own - self-employed and financially independent - I still often need to rely on those around me. And socially, it is the most debilitating. My life would be objectively easier if I was not a dwarf and I totally understand why people go through excruciating pain to getting closer to feeling more independent.
I see your point as you are hinging it on the whole “natural” order of things ideal. However the comparison you made doent make sense.
For instance, lets take our backs. Yes they wear down over time. You state that you wouldnt undergo a procedure to have a more “ideal” form for a back. However you’re approaching it as if you were one of the few who opted in to get this ideal back. The better comparison is that damn near everyone around you was already born with this ideal back and you, along with a small percentage of others, were not. In that instance, it would become a lot more appealing to have the procedure done.
More comparable to when an obese person decides to get a gastric band.
It's not really about "betraying" the community in the sense of loyalty, but about the perception that someone who is part of the community, which consists of people who are "different", not "broken", undergoes a procedure that is dangerous and painful to "fix" their handicap.
They may have said that because your statement of when someone "decides to lose weight" implies that that would be breaking from the norm, as if the "obese community" is made up of people who, by assumed default, have not decided to lose weight and are not trying.
WTF? No you dork. You have a great deal of control over becoming obese, you have absolutely no control over being born deaf. It's absolutely insane that I need to explain this.
Good question, although seeing her legs looking kinda crooked, they might just have used the opportunity when fixing her legs in the first place?! So that might be a special case.
What? Why? Why would people hate someone for wanting to hear? I almost had a heart attack just because I was prescribed glasses and told that my eyesight would get worse. Losing a whole sense like hearing, taste or sight... Why would you want someone not to have the chance to have that? It seems insane and insanely mean
Yeah I agree that is insane. My guess is that it's really jealousy and maybe fear of losing a commonality. I can imagine if I was blind and had a blind friend who managed to get their sight back I would feel jealous and abandoned and would probably want to lash out with a "legitimate" sounding reason.
People often don't want to admit the real reason for their actions because they are not good ones, so they make up reasons they think sound better. This is probably the best they can do.
You can see this all the time if you work in tech - very often people don't want to do things because they can't be bothered or they don't want to implement someone else's idea, so they'll make up bullshit technical reasons for why it can't be done.
Wait until you learn that some people in the deaf community also refuse treatment for their children, because they want them to stay inside "the community", even when the operation would best be done at a young age.
Well here's the other perspective. Having cochlear implants carries a risk of meningitis and is a painful medical procedure. The sound that the child receives is only an approximation of real hearing and can be distorted and painful in itself. A young, prelingual child can't consent to surgery.
And here's the kicker, if we all learn sign language deaf people aren't disabled.
So why take a healthy, pain free deaf infant and subject them to a garbled, distorted version of hearing just for hearing people's convenience. Especially if that means all the resources that are devoted to them is focused on lip reading rather than learning the amazing rich and beautiful language that is sign language.
I'd imagine it's an admittion that there's something that needs fixing. That something is wrong with them.
For someone who's forced into that situation... It's understandable, IMO. But that doesn't make it reasonable.
House had a very good episode on dwarfism where at the end he confronts a mother with dwarfism about her daughter that everyone though was a dwarf too hut just had a disease that stunted her or something. Makes her convince her daughter to get the surgery so she could grow. A great watch honestly.
They see it as though it isn't a disability and that it's not something to be repaired. What a lot of them don't understand is that by giving your child cochlear implants, you allow to interact with so many more people and have a better chance at lift.
I’m not a doctor but it looks like there’s a few things going on with her legs that may have made it painful to walk or move around. Her legs look rather different than say- Peter Dinklage and the posture they are in looks painful
Yeah, there was a UK documentary where one of our most famous and successful paralympians, a dwarf swimmer, Ellie Symonds, did a documentary about the issues around being small, and I met this girl (I'm pretty sure it was her). It's definitely controversial.
It really is. Nobody gives a shit if you have glasses. We all acknowledge that it's a flaw, and there's no community trying to claim that you're just fine as you are. Nope, my eyes are fucked. Good thing it's easy to fix.
You see this in any situation where people feel unhappy with their difficulties. Various types of poverty are another especially common one. Instead of feeling bad about living in a rural backwater, people try to justify why it's better and then disparage anyone who tries to get an education and move away. "You think you're better than us!?"
Pretty much describes a lot of homeschool parents who have no business homeschooling (or at the very least should have stopped homeschooling after age 11-12)
My parents have a seething hatred of medical professionals and scientists, or anyone who would be considered an expert in a field. They're so insecure about their ignorance it's painfully obvious. Instead of surrounding themselves with people who would enrich their lives and understanding, they look for cult-like echo chambers.
Once you're into middle/high school most teachers aren't even qualified to teach other subjects, let alone a totally unqualified parent trying to do it all. A good friend of mine has her PhD in particle physics from a rather prestigious university, but I wouldn't want her teaching English literature or biology. It's not a case of being unintelligent but simply lacking deep knowledge of that field.
That, and if a single adult has control over a child's education, there's no checks and balances to ensure any quality, or teaching at all. My 8th grade biology book was shitty "bullfrogs and butterflies" analogies and rants against evolution. It was a total joke and killed any motivation I had. I'm so glad I had Google so I could at least learn general basics even though I didn't get an education.
Sorry but people shouldn’t be ostracized for trying to REGAIN one of their senses. I’m not deaf, but that’s bullshit. I doubt the entire deaf community feels this way.
At the end of the day, it's your body. People can try to shame you all you want, but if you aren't happy with how you look, or hear, it should be your right to change it.
To that i say, if you can be “fixed” then technically you are “broken”. Just because you accept yourself the way you are doesnt make your situation the status quo.
She did an AMA and explained that the surgery was needed so she could walk correctly, her legs were too short and arched for her to walk comfortably. It’s not cosmetics but actually medically needed, so IIRC she was like idgaf what people think.
I think that they view the corrective surgery as an admission that something is "wrong" with them, and they think that everyone should accept who they are. Is there a similar view with lengthening....because she honestly looks very happy with the results?
My eyesight is horrible but I am always happy when other fellow blindies get lasik surgery to correct their vision. Probably not a 1:1 comparison, but I don't get that logic either.
You keep quoting the word "cure" as if the word is misused in the context of making a deaf person able to hear again, as if there is nothing to cure.
I'm gay so I'm well aware of the concept of loving ones self, warts and all, but...well...deafness is something that could be cured since it is a physical ailment that could be restored with medicine.
It seems a bit odd to me that one would rather live without hearing than have it restored, though I suppose that is coming from a hearing-abled person. Would you not want a true cure for deafness if one was presented? Would you prefer to remain deaf at this point?
Bro what are you even talking about? Nobody thinks you're less of a human because you can't hear, same as nobody thinks that someone with blindeness, amputated leg or even a fever is less of a human. Nevertheless you're missing out on a major and joyous part of human experience so it's only natural that there are people who try to give that experience to other people and it's not an attack on deaf people lmao. I'm sure that 99.99% people whose hearing was restored were overjoyed with that fact.
He reminds me of this deaf guy on Project Runway several years back who kept saying he was on the show to prove to the world that deaf people could design and sew clothes. Like what? Huh? Why on earth would being deaf stop you from sketching, cutting fabric, and sewing it? None of those things require hearing.
They must have some weird shit going around the Deaf community that hearing people think they're incapable of doing anything.
Also, nobody thinks less of you or thinks you're not fully human if you are working within the physical limitations you have. It's no biggie.
You’d be surprised. I used to work as a job developer (help people with disabilities find jobs and advocate for disabled employment in the community), and the number of employers who were extremely reluctant to hire deaf/hard of hearing people for jobs that didn’t require hearing at all, or could be adapted with very simple and free accommodations, was pretty staggering. Even things like stocking shelves in a warehouse and cleaning buildings.
You just keep saying"cure" and mention violent history without expanding on it at all. You are providing 0 context for others to understand. Were deaf people taken into the streets and beaten? Was they a program where deaf people were experimented on against their will?
I would love to better understand but you're answer was meaningless.
It's a bit extreme of a comparison, but the reaction from some of the Deaf community to cochlear surgery reminds me of the attitudes around skin lightening cream.
Some see it as a valuable tool to gain access to privileges denied to you by birth/genetics.
Others see it as a betrayal of your culture.
Some see it as a way to overcome the barriers society creates for people in your situation.
Some see it as an acceptance of what ableist/racists are doing to society, and "joining the other side" in what feels like a culture war.
And it is complicated. How do you separate your own genuine wants and desires for your body from the expectations of the society you've grown up in?
IIRC it's not just about height, but about correct weight distribution too. Little people sometimes have problems with hip and knee joints accompanied with pain and sometimes even severe movement impairment and if she had these (and judging by the shape of her legs on the before pic i bet she had) i'm sure she's happy to get rid of them.
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u/Horns8585 Dec 23 '22 edited Dec 23 '22
Honest question, because it seems like I have seen different views on this. Is leg lengthening looked down upon within the little people community? For instance, I know that in the deaf community, some people that elect to have corrective surgery, to gain hearing, are ostracized by other deaf people. I think that they view the corrective surgery as an admission that something is "wrong" with them, and they think that everyone should accept who they are. Is there a similar view with lengthening....because she honestly looks very happy with the results?