rolling, Shel and DD! 
Shel!
rolling, because there are languages, jokes and other aspects of Deaf that make it a culture, I personally don't think being born deaf has to be a disability. I think it's another situational variant, like someone born in one country <being born deaf> coming to another country <born into hearing family>. I think what happens a lot is other people consider it a disability and and something to fix, remediate/rectify, see as a tragedy. Other people's attitudes/lack of knowledge make it a disability.
yeah, DD, people so often make assumptions - "oh, you didn't LOOK like....." < a certain way that they think someone in a perceived category is supposed to look like>, or "you seem so smart to be/have LD" which has happened to me.
It can be hard to be patient at times-
