Ooooh! I love honest stuff!! I'm excited about this thread! Hope people are civil!
As for my thought contribution, as long we are being honest here..... I grew up "rejecting" the Deaf community. I wouldn't say that I rejected them, but rather, I did not go out of my way to be a part of them. For example, my mom would keep taking me to those "deaf conventions" so that I can meet new deaf kids my age and she can learn about new different technologies. This was when I was from 6-10 years old, and forgive me for being blunt, but being around with other deaf people kinda freaked me out (remember! I was young!!!). Maybe it was because I didn't know ASL fluently, but I did try to talk to them through fingerspelling and I noticed that every single deaf person I talked to my age was really.... awkward in a social way. And I would try to talk about normal stuff like "Do you have any brothers or sisters?" or "Do you play video games?" and they would KEEP ON asking me "Why don't you know ASL?". So I was very very turned off in terms of wanting to be a part of the Deaf community at a young age. So I admit it, I did sort of reject them for NO reason really.
