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<blockquote data-quote="VacationGuy234" data-source="post: 2386525" data-attributes="member: 53807">In my opinion, hearing status becomes an issue under certaincircumstances, in certain threads which most notably pertain todeafness, culture and social interactions. When discussing deafness,members seem to want to use a person's hearing status to eithersupport or deny an opinion. For example, some members feel a latedeafened person cannot adequately understand what it is like to growup deaf. Such is often the case when a hearing parent is making decisions for a deaf child, or when a late deafened person isdiscussing mainstream schooling. It also comes into play whendiscussing culture and what is the, &quot;actual&quot; definition of deafness.There have been cases were members, without looking at anothermember's about me section will form an opinion about that member's hearing status based on posts. I have actually had a member, who did not understand that I am deaf, tell me I'm a person of privilege because of my writing style. Probably nowhere else is hearing identity more misunderstood than in posts were members are looking for companionship. I think a lot of people come to all deaf looking for members like themselves, including friends and family of deaf. The diversity of Alldeaf and the name Alldeaf contrast the actual membership of the site.Having said that, I think the about me section should probably include a hearing status item if hearing members are intimidated about their status. (The larger problem is the intimidation itself which cannot easily be addressed)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="VacationGuy234, post: 2386525, member: 53807"] In my opinion, hearing status becomes an issue under certain circumstances, in certain threads which most notably pertain to deafness, culture and social interactions. When discussing deafness, members seem to want to use a person's hearing status to either support or deny an opinion. For example, some members feel a late deafened person cannot adequately understand what it is like to grow up deaf. Such is often the case when a hearing parent is making decisions for a deaf child, or when a late deafened person is discussing mainstream schooling. It also comes into play when discussing culture and what is the, "actual" definition of deafness. There have been cases were members, without looking at another member's about me section will form an opinion about that member's hearing status based on posts. I have actually had a member, who did not understand that I am deaf, tell me I'm a person of privilege because of my writing style. Probably nowhere else is hearing identity more misunderstood than in posts were members are looking for companionship. I think a lot of people come to all deaf looking for members like themselves, including friends and family of deaf. The diversity of Alldeaf and the name Alldeaf contrast the actual membership of the site. Having said that, I think the about me section should probably include a hearing status item if hearing members are intimidated about their status. (The larger problem is the intimidation itself which cannot easily be addressed) [/QUOTE]

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