Microaggression and Hearing Loss

What’s the correct term for someone who has problems hearing? It depends! The factors that go into how a person identities their hearing loss are multi-faceted. It is based on their personal preference, their degree of hearing loss, language they are most familiar with, language their doctor uses, or their culture. Asking a person how they identify their hearing loss is necessary for you to use correct language. If a person tells you they identify as hearing impaired, calling them deaf may be frustrating to them. It may even be a microaggression.

A microaggression is a term that was originally created by Dr. Derald Sue* to name an implicit or smaller act of racism. It has since grown to include biases when interacting with people from other types of underrepresented groups (e.g. disabilities). An example of a microaggression in the deaf and hard of hearing population is saying (or thinking) “Wow, you speak well for a person who can’t hear.” Another example is when someone says “I have a hearing loss” and they get the reply “What?” from the hearing person they are speaking with. Is it likely a joke? Yes. Does the person mean harm? Likely, no. Yet it can cause harm because it’s coming from a place of bias about what hearing loss and deafness mean.

Another form of microaggression is minimizing someone’s experience of oppression. If a Deaf individual states (or signs) “No one is my family understands what it is like to be Deaf in this family” and the response they get is “Yeah, but you are lucky, your family loves you and that’s not true for everyone” then their experience as a Deaf person has just been invalidated. Invalidating a person’s personal experience in regards to their diverse identity is a microaggression.

Historically (and wrongly), deaf people were considered “dumb.” If someone tells you that they are hard of hearing and you say “Oh, you are deaf”, to them, you may have just told them they are dumb. Yet, there are other individuals who are proud to identify as Deaf. Can this all be confusing for a hearing person to navigate? Yes! The best thing to do is ask. It would be very rare for a person with hearing loss to say “I’m offended!” if you were to say “Hey, I’ve been reading about terms that represent hearing loss and I would like to know how you refer to your hearing loss.”

I refer to myself in two ways, as deaf or as a person with hearing loss. Upper case D for Deaf often refers to a person who uses sign language and embraces the Deaf culture.** Lower case d for deaf often refers to a person who does not sign, uses oral speech, and who navigates the hearing world through interventions (e.g. hearing aids) and accommodations (e.g. CART). All of my natural hearing is gone, without my CI and HA, I hear nothing. To me, being deaf means I have no hearing left. Having a hearing loss, to me, gives me space to say “I have no hearing, yet I can still partially hear because of medical interventions.” If you are a person with hearing loss, how do you identify?

*Sue, D. W. (2010). Microaggressions in everyday life: Race, gender, and sexual orientation. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
**Young, A., & Hunt, R. (2011). Research with d/Deaf people.