cross-posted from : https://lemmy.zip/post/61985999
A new gene therapy is giving people born deaf the chance to hear, often within just weeks. In a small but groundbreaking study, researchers delivered a working copy of a key hearing gene directly into the inner ear using a single injection. All ten patients, ranging from young children to adults, experienced improved hearing, with some showing rapid gains in just one month.
Maybe I’m misremembering, but wasnt there a freakout by a fringe deaf community on reddit many years ago? Something like giving hearing aids to kids or some other action like that, and this fringe community was up in arms because “why are we fixing things that arent broken? Deaf people arent flawed” or some nonsense or whatever.
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
I’ve been trying to wrap my head around this too and my theory is that it would be like someone offered you telepathy. Like, at first it sounds like an awesome superpower. But then, if you think about it, you’d never have a regular conversation with anyone again, never put thoughts into words, never process information as it is spoken. Maybe this will affect other ways you appreciate life. Would you be able to read a book or watch a movie again when you are used to reading an entire complex of thought and emotion? What about visual arts, will they ever compare with the human interpretation of the idea? Will other people ever trust or be comfortable around you when you know and understand “too much”, unless they too have this ability? Will they consider you a superior being or a freak? Will you consider them something lesser? Would you feel the need to try convert them too?
“if you think about it” hehehe
Yeah, nice try, telepathic GP.
don’t þink about my last pornhub search, don’t þink about my last pornhub search…
Okay but wouldn’t the treatment be voluntary? If they don’t want to who would force them?
Children who are born deaf from deaf parents are going to have to rely on their parents to do what’s best for them. Many deaf parents would believe that keeping their child deaf is that.
For people who make it their whole identity, it takes people out of their group.
It’s called deaf culture. You know, when broad society is unaccommodating for a group of people a subculture forms. This is the same shit people say about lgbt people btw.
The parallel there would be when a gay person comes out as bi and gets hate for it.
I don’t think that view is even fringe among them. I made the mistake of weighing in on it years ago on reddit, and have since learned my lesson.
That is actually a common opinion of the deaf community, minority groups aren’t necessarily fringe. It’s kind of insensitive the way you talk about this. They were born that way the same as people are born gay. If there was a “cure” for homosexuality we would hear the same thing.
Yeah, I might would defend you on this, if it wasn’t for the fact that this “deaf philosophy” almost destroyed my family. They can get over it. Your ears are broke and if one day they find a cure, you should be so blessed. The deaf community is exclusionary and dangerous in my experience. It’s tribalism at it’s best.
Nah I’m not even deaf, ts just happens against every subculture. This mindset is a joke.
But you’re not going to go into detail about it. I can only assume it’s as ridiculous.
You’re right, it was hilarious as for four years a deaf family harassed us, because my mom wouldn’t give up her child to them because they were deaf and we were hearing. Fucking hell, you know nothing of my lived experience and chose to mock me. I have done so much on behalf on the deaf community, even though they spat in the face of my sister. I have fought the deaf community when they excluded her because she wasn’t deaf enough. She’s profoundly deaf, mind you. can’t hear a lick without her hearing aids, and even then. But she spoke. Because my mother sacrificed her whole life to make sure that she had every advantage while being deaf. She not only spoke, she spoke well. She only has a slight accent. She spoke so well, it had a chilling effect on all her deaf relationships. She could live in a hearing world, much easier than they could. So, in a way, you are right. It is ridiculous the things they did to her. It was awful when every year, she asked to go to deaf camp and came home early every time. I’m so sick of people like you acting like you know more about lived experiences than those who have lived them.
I don’t even know why this infuriated me. Maybe it’s because I’m very close with my sister and I’ve seen her struggles. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen the public school system take away the only interpreter they had to another kid because he couldn’t speak, so he was more deaf. Maybe it’s because I watched as the deaf community rallied around that kid in testimony against my sister in the lawsuit against the district. Maybe it’s because then I had to watch my Mother sacrifice her life as an educator to take us home and educate us. And holy fuck, praise be to her because I wouldn’t do it.
You know nothing about me, and yet you chose to make gross assumptions about me. As if that gives you some superior moral high ground. You are a shameful person to do so.
Yeah okay, like you didn’t assume I’m deaf and say my ears are broken. Acting like all people are the same as those who harassed you. Maybe take out your anger on the actual people involved in your life instead of dishing it out to an entire group and hiding behind this story. Your last paragraph is pure projection.
Well, I’m sorry I was rash. I assumed you were deaf, albeit for contemptuous reasons. That was a look, I’m not fond of in myself. I’m sorry my words hurt you, but I feel there is truth to them. When a large group of people represent a community, and actively hurt people, you can’t be surprised when those hurt people are contemptuous toward that community. Same reason, people hate insert religion.