Deaf Groupies???

[Kitten]

Csign, you were serious. I thought that you were being sarcastic. I didn't follow your train of thought there. Must be fuzzy brain today. Sorry.

Deaf people are always being recruited for religion. One local church here offered women spa treatments at a fancy place to get them to visit a deaf religious group. I'll hide the church name to protect the guilty. I thought that it was creepy. I would feel so uncomfortable in that situation.

I saw that! Don't remember where, but I thought it was creepy too.

I hope I'm not thought of as a Deaf Groupie. I've loved ASL since childhood and discovered it was the only foreign language I was good at. I just want to learn and improve. Learn Deaf Culture, ASL, everything... or as much as I can. Does that make me a groupie? (Hope not)

 

[joycem137]

I'm a hearie, but I think I can relate to this. As a member of the queer community, I have had encounters with "LGBT groupies" that see having an LGBT friend as some sort of badge of honor or something. They're all "Look at me! I'm so progressive and open-minded!" I particularly get annoyed when they try to be overly helpful and stuff, as if being queer makes me some sort of helpless person that needs a non-queer to save me. Ugh.

As I'm learning ASL and getting to know some Deaf folks, I'm definitely keeping my queer experiences in the back of my mind. I keep pondering my own behavior and wondering how I would react if a non-LGBT person acted this way towards me as LGBT.

Incidentally, I find learning ASL to be a good idea for the same reason it is sensible to learn any language: It's part of being a good citizen of the world.