I never said that one impacts more or less. I said that ‘disabilities are on a continuium’. What makes deaf unique is the linguistic features and neurological development of deaf children.
I mean, in your neck of the woods, being gay is no big deal. In Texas, maybe parents would rather have a deaf child.
You pointed out that diabled is when the majority group defines it, right?
That’s my argument. The majority group is WRONG. You think that gay people are not defective but you think that deaf are because of a lack of hearing? What in the hell are humans on earth for and what is it that’s required to keep going?
All reproducing requires a member of the opposite sex: even lesbians need sperm.
Being gay is just as disabling as being deaf if you want to go the medical route. But guess what? Neither condition really fucking matters and neither group should be treated as defective or lacking.
Damn it-“disabled”, “inferior” and “defective” are three very different words with three very different definitions. Would you mind picking one, looking up the definition, and sticking to it?
Who said the sex was uncomfortable or traumatizing? It’s possible for someone to vastly prefer sex with one gender but still be able to appreciate it with the other. I identify as straight but I’ve kissed a dude, and it didn’t suck. I know at least one lesbian who’s willingly had sex with a dude without fighting back bitter acidic tears.
As I already wrote: your claim that gay persons lack the “ability” to be straight is silly, because being straight or gay or bi or whatnot is not an action; it is an identity.
OK. As far as I’m concerned, you haven’t come anywhere close to proving it.
I never said deaf people were defective and I’ve said many times that they aren’t. Your insistence that I have is becoming offensive.
They’re here because their parents had sex. People aren’t here “for” anything.
Being gay doesn’t prevent people from reproducing. It never has, and today, that’s less the case than ever. Deaf people are biologically capable of reproducing, too, and they do with deaf and hearing people. I’m sure there are cultural and language barriers sometimes, but obviously couples overcome that.
No one said they should be treated as defective or lacking. I’m not sure how you could have failed to notice all the times I specifically said I don’t think deaf people are inferior or subhuman. It’s ridiculous.
I’m reluctant to address this because this is clearly an emotional topic for you, but I get the impression you think that if we say deaf people are disabled, we’re also saying that you are disabled because you have epilepsy, and that therefore we believe you personally are inferior. We’re not saying that. Stop assuming we are.
What? You mean some lesbians are bisexual?! And they are choosing to be gay? :smack:
Look, being a true-blue-can’t-do-you-and-be-happy gay person is a medical defect by its definition. It’s not a psychological one and doesn’t need to be ‘cured’, but the same reasons the APA put forth for taking it out of its manual are the same that Deaf put forth.
Pre-linguistic Deaf is what I’m talking about. Stop saying the obvious.
Like how gays and lesbians haven’t ‘proved’ that being attracted to only one sex isn’t a disability?
The song and dance isn’t about you, Marley. There are other people in this thread.
Fair enough. But we do operate with the idea that people will be ‘here’ in the future. Via reproduction.
I never said being gay prevented you from reproducing. But gay advocates say that you can’t discriminate against gays or same-sex marriage or try to ‘cure’ them because gay isn’t something to be cured, and even if you tried, you couldn’t.
Deaf people are treated as those who lack hearing AND as a result, have undesirable trait/s. Look at the thread. “Deaf people have to be more aware…deaf people get into more car accidents…I couldn’t do this if i were deaf…” etc.
No. I’m coming at this from philosophical, medical, and linguistic standpoints. I do have a disability. Whop de do.
If you want to argue that deafness is a medical disability, I don’t disagree with you. But so is being gay.
This whole thread started because I rejected someone’s ridiculous idea that the Deaf community wants to hear.
“Oh, well, if I created a pill to CURE HOMOSEXUALITY, ya’ll would be taking it!”
If I could selectively abort a fetus that I knew had ‘homosexual traits’, is that unethical? Because people in this thread have said that deafness is undesirable.
Some years ago I had two neighbors who lived across the alley in the back of my house. They were both deaf. One day the lady comes to my door crying with a note to please call the police. Of course I did. I had to use the pay phone across the street. I don’t even want to discuss trying to talk to the dispatcher, who could not understand that I had no idea what the problem was. When the police came they also could not communicate with my neighbor. They had a friend over who had apparently beaten the husband.
If you say that their not being able to utilize available resources when they were in danger is not a disability, you are in denial. They lived their lives okay I guess, they were together, worked, shopped, had parties, whatever else we all do in a day, but they were limited by their disability.
First: is “Andy” a typo for any, or an abbreviation? If the latter, what does it mean?
ETA: Never mind, I see you’ve corrected the error.
Second: I can think of several deaf persons I’ve met who don’t use TTY, and a few who can’t read or write well. The former are persons who lost their hearing late in life and are not comfortable with technology, even the limited sort of TTY as opposed to computerized relay. The latter are persons who were deaf from early childhood who were ill-served by their education as a youth. I think specifically of a bank customer of mine from a decade ago; I had to deal with her each time she came in the branch because I was the only person about who was even close to being conversant in sign, and her written notes were simply incomprehensible because she tried use ASL grammar for written English.
I’m not blaming her, and I’m not saying she is in any way inferior to other persons. But she DID have a disability; there were things she could not do. I hope that, if my son had lived longer, he’d have gotten a better education, but he too would have had a more difficult time of it than his cousin who was born within a month of him, because she can hear and had access to more sensory input.
Then you need to stop talking about a small minority of deaf people as if they represented all deaf people. If you lose your hearing or any sense at the age of 60 or 70 or older, of course it’s going to be a major disability. It’d be silly to argue otherwise. You can learn to deal with it and people do that, but it’s difficult. And that’s what happens to most people who lose their hearing. People who become disabled earlier deal with it much better, which makes sense. That doesn’t mean deafness isn’t a disability.
You’ve spent the last several pages primarily talking to me, Czarcasm, and Skald the Rhymer. None of us have said deaf people are defective or inferior, but you continue to insist on the point.
Yes, because it’s not a medical condition. If my auditory nerves were severed tomorrow, I’d lose my hearing. If they were repaired, I’d have it again. Human sexuality is a bit more complicated than that. We have tools that can reduce a person’s hearing impairment. We don’t have tools that reduce how gay or straight a person is (well, maybe alcohol for some people), and why would we?
I think someone called you on this already, but the thing about car accidents is a terrible paraphrase. I don’t have time to look, but I don’t think the others are any better. More importantly I think you’re using them to paint an inaccurate picture of how the posters look at deaf people. The “hearing pill” comment was wrong, but the quotes don’t illustrate that the people who wrote them can’t see past the disability.
And I don’t think the disability makes you inferior. I don’t think deaf people are inferior because of their disability either. Can we get on with our lives?
So far, your arguments to this end have been so ridiculous I don’t see why we should continue with them.
These two things have nothing to do each other. Saying a trait is undesirable does not mean fetuses with the trait should be aborted.
She couldn’t read and write well. If your son had lived longer and learned ASL, he’d be no worse off than a hearing child re: reading & writing.
Also, this may not be the right thread, but since you mentioned it, I am sorry for the loss of your boy. That is horrible.
No, Marley, you need to stop taking Deaf as to mean every person who is deaf. You’re a smart cat. It’s been explained several times.
Can we stay on the subject of CI, neurological developments, and disabilities arising from childhood illnesses or congenital defects? Kthx.
You have tools that ‘reduce’ one’s ‘natural’ instincts – drugs – just like there are tools to ‘decrease’ one’s ‘deafness’. They are temporary and not necessarily efficient means of coping with so-called aberrations.
Gays are a biological minority. So are deaf children.
You can put a CI in a child and do all the therapy you want. They aren’t hearing and processing like you and I do.
If you don’t have time to look, then don’t try to ‘prove’ me wrong by saying, ‘not uh’.
At least I’m putting forth points instead of saying, “Neener, neener!”
I was just wondering if you believed in selective abortions. Or CI. Because CI is an attempt to correct an undesirable trait. So is selective abortions for incurable things.
The only way to ‘cure’ gays is to ‘eradicate’ them, right? It’s not something to be cured. So the only way to ‘cure’ deaf children is to make sure they don’t come into play. Since that isn’t an option yet, the medical community tries to ‘make them as less deaf as possible’.
^^ except you, Marley, can’t neurologically re-wire your brain. Calling prelingual deafness a disability is your centric viewpoint of oral language.
Except be Deaf. (:
The original point of contention was this, from Max:
Being black does not carry a negative connotation at all? Being deaf doesn’t carry a negative connotation? By associating ‘deaf’ with disability, it is a negative word.
Candid said:
Marley, I said this on page one: The objection is not to the word disability, but to saying, You are disabled because you have undesirable traits and have deficits. It’s the perspective, the context, the intent. I’m pretty sure you get that part.
and you don’t get it? Why are you arguing?
And as Skald pointed out, being gay is part of an identity. Like being deaf. There’s a gay culture. There’s a Deaf culture. Should we eradicate both on the basis of ‘undesirable’ traits?
Because I’m not the only one who saw that argument…
Which means that your life is better…hmm.
Humans are also supposed to have sex with members of the opposite sex. Whop de doo da.
Deaf people are only disabled when interacting with hearing. Otherwise, they are 400 per cent capable of sustaining themselves.
Something that is a deviation from the norm does not always have to be ‘treated medically’.
Making fun of someone else’s culture and language. That’s not in any way derogatory. :rolleyes:
You said that CI is a treatment for being deaf. It’s an accomodation, not a treatment.
The only ‘cure’ for gays is to not have gays at all. Selective abortion is a medical procedure. So is CI. The earlier argument was about ‘treating medical problems’ and what constitutes as one.
Deaf people are only disabled when interacting with hearing BECAUSE OF HEARING PEOPLE’S PERCEPTIONS. Otherwise, they are 400 per cent capable of sustaining themselves. And living and being with hearing people. It’s the hearing people that have the problem.
CP, it’s been a long time, but thank you for your kind words about my son.
Anyway… I am a manager in an inside sales office. The people who work for me do virtually all of their work by telephone. They call customers in their sales territories and engage in conversations about their needs, trying to build new business or resolve problems those customers may be having; or they call our company’s billing or technical support or other such departments to resolve problems for their customers. A deaf person, even with the assistance of a relay operator (which I have been, incidentally), cannot do this job. Do you see why?
You obviously don’t understand or appreciate what Deaf people are, what they experience, or whatever.
If you want to go ahead and label people based on your perspective and your normative views, go ahead.
But I don’t know WHY anyone would INSIST on putting their labels onto another group. Who are you to say what someone is and is not? That is no fucking better than Focus on the Family saying that homosexuality can be cured and that there is a gay agenda devoted to promoting their ‘gay lifestyle’. Fuck that shit.
You seem pretty even-handed unless you’re talking to me. Then you argue. But you kept saying things that I was not, I had to repeat myself 10,000 times, and you apparently like to be argumentative with me when I disagree with you.
You you don’t have a fucking leg to stand on. At the moment, just a couple of useless ears.
