March 27, 2025
A few days before I went to Martha’s Vineyard, my hearing aids broke. As a deaf person who primarily uses American Sign Language (ASL), my hearing aids provide information about whether sound is present, though not always what it means. But lately I’ve come to rely on them most for the visual reminder of deafness that they give to hearing people. Without them, hearing people often assume I’m “ignoring” them, and most blow past patience or curiosity straight to anger. I’ve been shouted at in stores for not responding to a clerk’s call, shoved on a sidewalk for not responding fast enough to someone’s excuse me, assaulted on a subway platform after missing a man’s attempted flirtation.