I have a student in one of my classes. She has a CI, and mostly watches the teacher and between what she hears and what she sees (gestures, lipreading, stuff on the board) pretty much gets the bulk of the class. But she has an ASL interpreter in there too, for extra comprehension support. She functions mostly orally/aurally, and typically doesn't sign, even with fluent signers. Is she deaf or HOH? It is a lot easier for teachers to grasp the accommodations if they are told they will have a deaf student next term. Then later they figure out she voices for herself and doesn't always watch the terp.
I can imagine that "hard of hearing" to most people conjures up mental images of their grandparents, who needed a louder voice or wanted you to talk on one side or the other. So that's where we start. There is a joking quote that asks "Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?" You need to decide if saying what is convenient (deaf, so they don't shout at you) or what is correct (HOH, which you said you are) is right for you. You need to identify yourself as you are comfortable. Your self image gets to be your choice. People will make assumptions about what that means either way. You just need to go with what feels right for YOU. And if it stops feeling right, you get to change it. Just make sure YOU define yourself, otherwise everyone else will try to, and they'll probably all get it wrong.
