There was a whole law & order episode about it. And it’s not just a “fringe group“. I went to the Rochester Institute of technology, which is also where the National Technical Institute for the Deaf is. There is quite a substantial community of hearing impaired people who view it as an entire identity similar to how the LGBTQ community view their identity. To “take away” their deafness is to take away that identity and thereby exclude them from that community because of what a huge community and culture has been built around it.

To hearing people, that may seem difficult to understand, but, as someone who lived in a mixed community and around deaf people for many years, I definitely understand where they’re coming from. Yet, I still find it difficult to understand why someone who had the opportunity to gain the ability to hear would ultimately decide not to. Although I do understand why they might wrestle with such a decision. And, not being hearing impaired or deaf myself, I probably can never really fully understand it.

It’s very complicated