This is partially a comment on what S. Tremain offered about binaries in
gender, and partially a response to L.Davis' original post etc.
The Capital D Deaf community does not exist as a pure and polemic opposite
to the capital H Hearing community as some people may think. But leaders
(elected by members, who may be middle class, professional, white and of a
variety of genders, but mainly "dominant" Deaf people) in the Capital D
Deaf community have argued that cochlear impants on CHILDREN are abusive.
In the same way that sex assignment surgery on children can be seen as
conforming to parental wishes/societal expectations. What is interestng to
me is that adults who want Cochlear Implants may have lost their hearing
after acquiring a social identity as hearing person OR may have been
raised as a oral deaf person or even a hard of hearing person. These
adults MAY CHOOSE to have an implant as a consenting adults, much in the
way some people as ADULTS choose to have sex reassignment surgeries,
hormonal therapies or live as the "opposite" (not my choice of workds)
sex.
But in reality "Deaf" and "Hearing" are FAR from absolute categories. It
is no more insulting to say there is ONE Hearing culture than to say there
is One Deaf culture. There are people who are hard of hearing, late
deafneed, oral deaf, deaf-blind Deaf-blind, Deaf and low vision, Deaf or
daef with other disabilities- there are Deaf and deaf and hard of hearing
people who are of various ethnic and racial origins including first
language diffferences (Russian, Greek, Spanish, Arabic etc), various
religious faiths, various genders and sexual orientations. There is as
much diversity in "deafness" range as there COULD be in "gender" if we
stopped interpreting them as binary/polemic.
I am very interested in how the psychiatric power enabled the Child
Welfare people in the U S to intervene in a healthy (seemingly from the
story) family. Would this also mean that a signing Deaf family raising
their child to use sign language instead of getting an implant would be
putting the child at risk? Or even the opposite is a danger in my mind-
What if the government FORCED parents to use sign language with their
child without regard for the child (and family) individuality. Dogma is
dogma is dogma. Lets try to actively resist the discourse of opposites
and binaries.
Tanis
Visit http://members.xoom.com/doetanis1/newhome.html for some links.
Pls send attachments to [log in to unmask] not to this email thanks.
PLEASE VISIT EDGE PROJECT ON GENDER AND DISABILITY
http://www.disabilityhistory.org/edge/
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