I have been told that I'm not supportive of deaf people - which in other words, I am not deaf enough.
Let's count the ways, shall we?
1) I was born to hearing parents - it doesn't matter that I was born deaf.
2) I grew up in a hearing family - another strike against me.
3) I went to an oral school for the deaf - horrors!
4) I lipread, therefore, I have another black mark against me.
5) I did not learn sign language until I was 28. Oh, the shame!
6) I do not work with deaf people. OMG...
7) I am the only deaf person working with hearing people. Tsk..tsk.
8) I only see deaf people when I socialize. ("I never felt connected to the deaf community...")
9) I only use PSE. I guess ASLTA will have to go to war against me, huh?
10) I only use sign language when I'm around deaf, otherwise, I'm still a pure oralist. (Hey, time to mark DD as a ant-social personality)
11) Only my 1st cousin (who was born deaf, but does the same things as I do above) and I sign in my family. No one else does.
12) We just ain't deaf enough to satisfy everyone. Who in the heck cares?
I guess it's time to mark me as a heretic, ban me from the Deaf community, throw me out of AllDeaf, and rip up my membership card as a deaf person.
The main thing - and I've always believed this - is that if you are HEARING IMPAIRED, then you are DEAF. It doesn't matter if you are an oralist, wears a BTE or a CI, speaks or doesn't speak, wave your hands around, thump your foot on the floor for attention...what I believe is that...if you are Deaf, then you are DEAF, period.
There is no such thing, and there shouldn't be in the first place, as not being deaf enough!!!
We should embrace our diversity as a deaf community as we embrace our identites - and I say, if you think I AIN'T DEAF ENOUGH, you can stick it up your precious little a**h***.