Are they deaf? or just DisAbled?

Tomato Lichy can’t hear. He has a partner and a child who can’t hear either. Anyone would say that this is picture perfect, even if it is a very silent picture. So what’s the problem? Well, now they’ve decided that they’d rather that any other children they have couldn’t hear either. They, along with other people who can’t hear, like Cathy Hefferman, claim that not being able to hear is not a disability. They see themselves as part of a linguistic minority, says Lichy, and they are proud to speak Sign Language.

It is a very natural thing to be proud of your language. I’m very proud of mine. And it does make perfect sense to me that if those who could hear learnt Sign Language, then not being able to hear wouldn’t be a problem at all.

An interviewer, who can hear perfectly, told Lichy that those who can’t miss out on hearing Beethoven. Cathy Hefferman hilariously, but rightly, says in her excellent article that: lots of people choose not to listen to him, but they’re not disabled. Or if, like me, they are, then they can hear!

Now to some, a silent world is a lonely place. So those who can hear wonder why anyone would knowingly want to make their child miss out on music, TV, and spoken conversation. Well, Hefferman covers this in her article. As well as her hilarious response to the Beethoven comment, she says that those who can’t hear read subtitles, type into their phones and speak something called… you guessed it… Sign Language. That doesn’t ‘sound’ like a disability to me. Or at least, Lichy and Hefferman have done a brilliant job of turning it into a DisAbility. Which, with a little help from a few sensitive inventors who wanted Lichy, Hefferman and others who can’t hear to access the hearing world, is exactly what it has now become.

The problem is that  deciding that you don’t want your child to be able to hear will soon be made illegal. So people, mostly those who can hear, think that Lichy and his partner, Paula Garfield, need a bit of help. In their heads, that is. And I can see that point too. After all, I am very grateful to be able to hear. And  if they particularly wanted to make sure that their children could hear, I would be the first person to hate them deeply for it!

 I am  very grateful for my own disability. Most of the time. But at the same time, I would never in a million years want to knowingly give my child my disability. Becuse, as much as I love it, there are things it stops me from doing that I would love to be able to do. Even though I try not to let it stop me living a good life, I do realise this, and see myself as having a disability.

But if Lichy, Garfield, Hefferman and others who speak Sign Language don’t see themselves as having a disability, then I can understand them not seeing a problem with wanting a child who can’t hear.  

I’m sure that Lichy and Garfield know that since their first child can’t hear, there is a chance that their second child won’t be able to hear either, without them having to check or choose this, or break any laws. I hope, if this is what they want, that this is what happens. For now, all I know is that for a man called Tomato and a lady named after a cartoon cat, they sure speak a lot of sense. And I, for one, couldn’t care less that they do it in Sign Language. In fact, I wish I could speak Sign Language myself.

Because the Sign Language  speaking community is obviously full of truly DisAbled people. And those are exactly the kinds of people I love.