u/HelensScarletFever

[reposted from my original post over at r/HelensDeafClub just because I NEED to get info on this!]

I just learned that RID appointed a two-years termed CEO. The guy is Scott Ready.

And the worst thing is that they didn't publicly announced it!

They quietly announced it by emailing state level chapters' presidents about this. I only found out about this because a redditor here alerted me about it and when I took a look into it, I found out that this was announced FOUR days ago!

Oh, come on!

I thought RID was making a lot of improvements on being more open to the public about their progress!

And this BS happened!

What the fuck!?

I spent the last half hour googling him up and I can't find anything solid about this guy!

Who the hell is Scott Ready!?

Hi, terps!

It's me, Helen!

So I just opened up my own subreddit, r/HelensDeafClub! I announced this a few hours ago on my own subreddit and I also made an announcement about this over at r/deaf.

And I realized that I forgot about you guys here.

I really owe you a lot of explanation.

I know a lot of you here on this subreddit have been waiting on my posts about the progress that RID has made over the last five months.

I didn't post in this subreddit about this progress because I came to realize that I was having a crisis as "Helen" on Reddit back in February.

It's not because of you guys. You were really great to me in this subreddit.

It's just that - after a year of shitposting both here on this subreddit and over at r/deaf, I got to a point where I realized that subreddits such as r/deaf, r/blind, r/disability, etc. - these subreddits are built for personal support spaces and for self-help seeking posts.

Look, I'm fine with these spaces serving self-help seeking purposes. I just expected that these spaces would be welcoming to posts that go into details about the drama around these communities. And… Duh. I've learned that these posts are not welcomed in these spaces.

That experience made me… well… pissed off with these kinds of communities.

The expectation of keeping these kinds of subreddits exclusive to self-help seeking posts is very infantilizing.

I was an angry deaf person when I was a teenager.

I was an anti-hearing-people person when I was in my early 20's.

When I got to my mid-20's, I realized that it was pointless to hate hearing people. And that was when I decided to dive deep into learning how to take control of my accessibility needs as a deaf person (meaning me understanding how to advocate for my ASL interpreter accessibility needs like a pro). And that was when my whole worldview changed.

I'm almost 40 now. I have a lot of experience in self-advocacy. Also, my late 20's were when I decided to invest myself in learning everything I can about the deaf history and the disabled history. This is where I developed a lot of deep and complex understanding of how the world works for a disabled person like me.

And, here I am today!

I have so much to offer to you guys. I have a lot of original perspectives to offer you that you won't find anywhere else. I built my subreddit because places like r/deaf and r/disability are way too bothered at the kind of posts that I tend to make. They like the easy posts that they're used to. My subreddit is explicitly designed to offer a platform for people who want to talk about stuff that no one is willing to talk about in public (just look at my subreddit's rules and guidelines to get an idea).

—

Alrighty, with that said…

The reason why I haven't made any posts here in r/ASLinterpreters is just because I got to a point where I felt very out of place.

I swear a lot in my posts. I use a lot of juvenile humor. I am not ashamed of saying a lot of rough stuff aloud.

I don't want to sacrifice that kind of style with my Reddit posts. I want to say "fuck" a lot. I want to tackle offensive and controversial topics head-on. I want to frame these kinds of topics in a way that I think is funny.

But…

The r/ASLinterpreters subreddit is such a professional space. And there's nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all.

Like I said above, you guys were great to me with all of the posts I've ever made here over the past year.

I just got to a point where I feel very out of place in this subreddit with the type of posts I want to make.

And my solution to this struggle is to post what I want about RID and the interpreter industry in my own subreddit. That's the only place where I can actually be myself.

So, r/HelensDeafClub is going to be the permanent home for my posts related to RID and the ASL interpreter industry. If you want to keep up with my posts about this topic, join my club.

Also, I'll tell you that my club will be a great place for you to be in touch with the currents within the deaf community. This will be nothing but a rich benefit for you as a professional in our community.

Thank you for reading and I'll see you at my club!

Helen

r/HelensDeafClub

See you there!

Hi, r/deaf!

It's me, Helen!

See title.

But before I proceed with this post, I'd like to give you a quick update on the upcoming launch of my new subreddit, r/HelensDeafClub.

In my most recent two rant posts here in r/deaf, I announced that I am going to launch r/HelensDeafClub and I gave you guys a launch deadline of around late June of this year. I said that I was timing the launch of my subreddit for the upcoming NAD conference.

I wasn't expecting anything outside of comments under that post, but no, I got a lot of mod mail from you guys requesting to join the subreddit. I think I got about 40 of them.

And a lot of your requests were very flattering. A lot of you said nice things about your interest in joining my new subreddit.

I am humbled. I am grateful for your enthusiasm in seeing that kind of community opening up on this site.

Because of the encouragement I've received with that announcement, I've decided to open up that subreddit sooner rather than later.

Just that, I'm not 100% done.

I'm finished with setting up the rules for that subreddit.

I'm finished with writing my pinned "Welcome to r/HelensDeafClub" post.

I also worked really hard on finding a way to scrape the internet for daily news around the deaf community. My goal with doing this is to be able to post 1-5 light posts on a daily basis that would keep you informed on the current news around the deaf community.

I initially attempted to set up a RSS feed app that would inform me of new content on many deaf-related websites but I hit a roadblock with that endeavor. I found out that many deaf-related websites aren't built to allow a RSS feed function. After wrestling with this issue for a while, I found a solution.

Google alerts.

I've set up 500+ customized Google Alerts around the deaf community that range from many broad topics to many hyper-specific topics that I want to flood my email inbox with. I've since gotten 100+ alerts per day. Fucking A.

I'm down to finishing up a pinned post that provides guidelines on what the community should look like.

I've also said that I want to have 10 fresh posts to open the subreddit with. This is where I got a few pieces of feedback about. A few of you told me that 10 long-ass posts at a subreddit launch would be overwhelming and that I should just start with fewer than 10 posts and let the subreddit gain momentum.

I'm going to go with that suggestion. I'm going to launch that subreddit with two long-ass posts. I'm finished with one of them. And the other one of them is actually a developing drama inside the deaf community. I suspect that it'll reach its crescendo during the upcoming week. If it does, I'll complete that post and…

Launch the subreddit!

Dear readers, I think I will launch my subreddit within the next two weeks!

Anyway…

Earlier today, u/wibbly-water posted their "Part Four" post about sign language in written form. Their posts are great stuff. You should read them.

And there is one specific section in their "Part Four" post that gave a brief overview of the history of the deaf community.

That brief section is what inspired this post. I began writing this post originally as a comment to respond to that section in their post before realizing that this was worthy of a stand-alone post.

Be forewarned that this post is not the cleanest post I’ve written. It’s a stream of consciousness writing. I didn’t bother with structuring anything with this writing. I just wrote whatever came out of my mind.

Here goes!

—

Hey, u/wibbly-water!

Great post! Quality post right there.

Sign language linguistics are your obvious domain. ASL is my mother tongue and I've been fluent in it my entire life. I never learned ASL linguistics or sign language linguistics in general but I have a solid instinct on the linguistic fundamentals of ASL.

There is one specific part of your post that I want to offer my perspective on, and it's not about the sign language linguistics and/or the written form of sign language. It's about what you wrote about the history of sign language during the pre-L'Épée/Clerc era.

You said that sign language existed since the dawn of time and that there are historical records of these. This is where I have a very different view compared to you.

I recall one of our conversations in a comment section with one of my posts months ago where I mentioned something about how deaf schools are the cradle of sign language. You replied to me saying that you have quibbles about that claim and challenged me about this.

Now, I have an opportunity to provide a friendly challenge on your view on this.

Before I start with this, I just want to tell you that I've made myself very clear with where I fit in within the deaf community. That I was born completely deaf, have cochlear implants, grew up mainstreamed with a sizable deaf program and a sizable amount of deaf students, that my parents also sent me to many deaf programs, camps, and events where ASL is the dominant language to make up for the isolation I experienced at my mainstream school, that I graduated from Gallaudet University, my professional involvement inside the deaf community, and my volunteer experience with deaf organizations.

However, I don't know the extent of your experience in your British deaf community. The only clue I'm getting from you is from your flair. You say that you are hard-of-hearing and that you are learning BSL.

If I'm going to base any assumptions about your involvement in the deaf community on that, I suspect that we are informed by rather different worldviews on the history of sign language and the deaf community.

You see…

I have a few books on my bookshelves about the history of the deaf community (yes, they're all books on the American deaf community because that's where I am from). In these books, the deaf authors/scholars/whatever-have-you all point to deaf schools being the true beginning of both the development of sign language as a whole language by itself and how the development of sign language as a whole language is the true predecessor for the "deaf community" as we know it today.

Just to be clear, I do not agree with that stance in a strict sense.

It is a popular attitude inside the deaf community that deafness should not be viewed as a pathological condition but rather as a cultural minority.

It is my view that deafness should be viewed as a disabled identity with shades across the pathological/culture spectrum instead of a singular view on either side of the spectrum line.

So where I'm going with this is that I view the deaf community's proclamation on deaf schools and the development of sign language as the true beginning of the "deaf community" as a harmful one. It is because that worldview ignores the existence of deaf people prior to the emergence of deaf schools.

And, no, their acknowledgement of records showing the existence of sign language prior to the emergence of deaf schools doesn't count as an acknowledgement of the deaf community prior to the emergence of deaf schools.

Whew, this is going to get complicated from this point on.

Okay, so…

It is my belief that the people who identify themselves as a part of the culturally big-D Deaf community tie their deaf identity directly to sign language. They don't tie their identity as a deaf person based on their hearing disability. They tie their identity as a deaf person based on the sign language itself. They define "deaf community" as those who embrace sign language as a primary part of their identity.

I'm not like them. I embrace my hearing disability as the primary source of my identity as a deaf person and sign language/deaf community as the secondary source of my identity as a deaf person.

With that said, my interpretation of the history of the deaf community during the pre-L'Épée/Clerc era is that the deaf people led lives that are similar to feral children.

I discovered the feral children category of knowledge when I was 19 years old and I became fascinated with them without understanding why back then. It wasn't until my consciousness about my deaf identity became fully developed by the time I turned 30 that I realized why I was so fascinated by feral children.

I realized that it is likely that the type of lives that the deaf people experienced during all of the history of mankind up to the emergence of deaf schools are similar to the life experiences that feral children had.

Some good feral children examples would be Victor of Aveyron, "children raised by wolves", and Kaspar Hauser. But I can't use these as honest examples because their upbringings led them to incorporate some extremely bizarre forms of behavior like walking/running/crawling like an animal or, like Kaspar Hauser, having a baby-like gait because he was locked in a small and dark dungeon and never allowed to move around to have meaningful physical development.

The best example of a feral child that I think would be similar to the experience that the pre-history deaf people had that I can point you to would be Genie.

There is a whole book about her called "Genie: A Scientific Tragedy" by Russ Rymer.

Genie is a girl who grew up locked in a room by her parents. She was discovered by the authorities when she was 13 years old. She was subsequently rescued and the scientific community realized that she is the closest case of a feral child in modern history. There was a lot of study done on her before the state of California decided that it was better for her to lead a private life at an undisclosed facility for mentally underdeveloped adults.

Genie, despite being hearing herself, is not capable of acquiring a normal level of speech and reading language ability and is able to communicate okay with sign language in a limited capacity.

I hold a deep conviction that all of the deaf people who have ever existed before the epoch of deaf schools are likely to have led a life that closely parallels Genie's.

And, hey look, I know there will be a lot of people in the culturally big-D deaf spaces that would be upset at my take here. I promise you that I'm not being a contrarian by posting something that would thumb their noses. It is simply that the literature on the culturally deaf community is presented from a point of view that the birth of the deaf community began at the emergence of deaf schools and the development of sign language as a whole language. As far as I know, there is no literature that explores what the lives of deaf people before the said epoch of deaf schools looked like.

(Author's note: I just gave this a quick Google search. From what I was able to find, Harlan Lane's "When the Mind Hears" apparently explored this topic. I have a copy of this book on my bookshelf. I just haven't gotten around to reading it. I'll definitely post about this when I get around to reading that one.)

So… yeah. I really do think 99% of the history of deaf people is full of Genies walking around and living a very cold and dark existence.

I actually can personally say that I have a real life experience with the theory that I'm presenting here.

I've encountered two separate deaf persons who had zero language development. One of them was a teenager (he'd be an adult right now) and I won't talk about this one in this post. Maybe someday, but not today. The other one is the father of my deaf friend.

I have one deaf friend who was adopted by his hearing aunt. His aunt is fluent in ASL because her sister was a deaf person. Her sister is my deaf friend's biological mother. And this deaf biological mother of my friend died many years ago. His deaf biological mother had a lifelong drug problem that was fueled by her isolation and oppression as a deaf person. His biological mother gave birth to him with a deaf man (my friend's deaf biological father).

My friend's father was a deaf man with NO language.

I met his father on the day of our high school graduation. And it was one of the most "human" experiences I've ever had as a deaf person.

My deaf friend had previously told me how his father had no language before I met him and I just didn't register what that meant until I met him.

I met my deaf friend's father when we went to an amusement park the day after our graduation. It was such a huge eye-opening experience for me.

He grew up in an environment that utterly failed him. He was never taught sign language. He was never taught written English.

He grew up in a rural-area family that viewed him as a shame because he was born deaf. He was left to fend for himself. His family taught him to do basic farm stuff that he spent his entire childhood doing manually.

When he was an adult, he got a job at a large facility with a strong union. He was the janitor there. He spent his entire adult life as a janitor at the facility. And the pay he received for his job was good enough for him to own a house (this was during America's blue collar industry boom during the 1950s–1990s). He is currently comfortably retired.

And he has no language. And he even has no level of education at all.

He cannot read. And I mean, he cannot even read a single word at all. He doesn't recognize the English language alphabet. He has no capability of recognizing any form of written language at all.

He also has no mental capacity for sign language at all. He can only recognize basic gestures.

My friend grew up without him in his life and when my friend graduated high school, he reconnected with his biological father. To this day, he is still teaching him basic ASL. His dad can now communicate in a rudimentary form of sign language. Just to make this clear, this man was a deaf person who finally got taught basic ASL when he was 60 years old. I mean… like his literally first exposure to any language at all was when he was 60 years old.

And it broke my heart when I realized that he is a person who looks up at the night sky and wonders about the scattered dots of light that he can see without understanding the concept of the vast cosmos beyond that he is seeing with his own eyes.

A deaf father like this, just like Genie…

… is what I think the deaf people looked like for all of the thousands of years that Homo Sapiens have ever existed as a species.

In response to your points about how Socrates observed a signing form of communication in Rome and a signing form of communication in Paris —

I really don't think they were ever fully developed sign language systems as we know today. I think they are something closer to the signing system that Genie and my deaf friend's deaf dad had.

And this leads me to present my interpretation of what I've read about the L'Épée/Clerc era of sign language development. The following is my interpretation of my reading on the history of the deaf schools, sign language development, and the deaf community —

L'Épée was hired to teach at that deaf school and he was instructed to teach his deaf children via the oralist method. He was also given a manual system of signs to convey some basic concepts to his deaf pupils. He proceeded with doing what he was told until he noticed that the deaf children never responded well to the oralist approach and he also noticed that the deaf children at the school became absorbed with the manual signs that were given to them. He noticed that the deaf children began to play with the manual sign structure with each other and that they actually began to develop some original and distinctive signs completely on their own.

L'Épée then had a radical idea that would forever change the trajectory for the deaf people. He thought: "what if I just go ahead and take the original signs that these deaf children developed on their own and incorporate that in how I communicate with them during my classes?"

So he tried that.

L'Épée was met with a surprise that the deaf children reacted very well to his radical approach. He noticed that the education process of his deaf children spiked up with his approach.

The more he taught his classes using signs that his deaf children developed by themselves, the more these deaf children thrived. That, in turn, led to the deaf children creating even more complex signs to reflect complex concepts. And, again, in turn, L'Épée cycled the increasingly complex language structure that his pupils developed by themselves back to them in his classes.

This allowed a natural blossoming of sign language development.

This unique linguistic dynamic that L'Épée fostered at that deaf school is what gave birth to the sign language system that we have today.

And, my god! This is an insanely beautiful phenomenon to have ever occurred in human history.

This is why I am here today. This is why I am Helen, a deaf Reddit shitposter!

This is what brings me back to your points about how Socrates observed a signing form of communication in Rome and a signing form of communication in Paris.

I really don't think they were ever fully developed sign language systems as we know today. I think they are something closer to the signing system that Genie and my deaf friend's deaf dad had.

In closing…

What I wrote is something that I truly believe was the reality of the deaf people before the epoch of deaf schools.

I'm willing to be challenged on my take on this. Just know that it'll be a tall order for me to change my view. I mean, after all, this is what I took away from my own reading of the literature that the deaf community produced themselves.

And it is something that I am very frustrated with the deaf community about.

All of the literature around the deaf community specifies the emergence of deaf schools as the true cradle of the deaf community. I really think this worldview is very exclusionary of the deaf people who lived before the deaf school era.

And I know that what I've written in this post will piss off a lot of people inside the big "D" culturally deaf community. I don't care. This is why Reddit is a great place to talk about this kind of stuff. Reddit's culture around anonymity is what allows us to write about stuff that may be viewed as unpopular in our community's popular public worldview without any social punishment.

At moments like this, I really want to grab the big-D deaf people by their ears and scream in their face:

AAA-AAAHHHHHH!

—

Thank you for reading!

Helen

Hi, r/disabled!

I’m Helen!

I was born profoundly deaf and I use sign language to communicate. I’m also passionate about all things disabled.

I only just found out about this subreddit. I’m curious what’s the difference between this subreddit and r/disability?

AAA-HHHHHHH!

It's me, Helen!

As the title said, this is my follow-up post in response to the popularity of my recent rant post.

Last Wednesday evening, because the trees were blooming and colors were coming back, I decided to go out for a walk around a nearby park with a cute waterfall. That area is also nearby one of my favorite restaurants. I took a bubble bath before going out because I needed to smell pretty when I'm around people.

Like I usually do, I browsed reddit when I was in the bathtub and I found this post.

In short, it's a post made by a hearing guy asking r/deaf if he should give his phone number to his coworker who is a deaf woman.

I just lost it at that post because I felt like that it was such a shit post. We do have r/askdeaf and I felt like posts like this belonged over there - not here in r/deaf. I also felt really bad for this deaf woman because in the comment section of that post, members of this community told him to not date anyone at work and OP was like "why not?" Like, duh? Has he not heard of basic workplace etiquette!? That post also got me worried about that deaf woman because I know if things go south at her workplace, her superiors are likely to favor and protect their hearing worker over their deaf worker. It felt like to me that his shitty workplace etiquette would hurt a deaf person.

I was already having a lot of frustrations with r/deaf and that post sent me over the edge. Impulses got the best of me and I wrote that post.

I wrote that whole post in the bubble bath I was having that evening.

I posted the rant here and went out for a walk at the park with the waterfall. I didn't bother with turning on my reddit notifications.

I was expecting to get downvoted. I didn't care. I just felt good that I got it out of my system. I figured that I'd get maybe five angry Redditors and I'd have some fun fighting them on the internet later on that night.

By the time I sat down for dinner, I checked reddit and I was floored with the overwhelming amount of comments I got on that post. It is currently my #2 post of all time. And in the past, my posts have never broken the 100 comment line. This post has just over 200 comments. And it was full of love for my rant.

I also got quite a few flattering DMs.

My post also inspired three posts here in r/deaf. One was about a new Germany movie with a deaf character in it. I didn't even know about that until I saw that post. The other one was about a deaf artist from 100 years ago that died too young. I also never knew about this either until I saw that post! And the yet another one is about a written form of sign language!

Guys… I am humbled by all of the love I got from that rant post.

And…

I feel like you deserve a follow-up post with me being level with you about that post and my plans for the future.

---

As you can glean from my post, I am dealing with a lot of frustrations about the r/deaf community here.

Look -

I do have a lot of experience in the deaf community. I also came from a unique blend of backgrounds. I grew up mainstreamed, went to Gallaudet University, got a job in the deaf world, and then moved beyond that. I've been involved with a lot of stuff in this community. I've made a good amount of friends in this community.

To my friends, I am someone who they specifically seek out to discuss issues around the deaf community because they like my thoughts/perspectives on stuff like this. It means a lot to me that I am valued in that way.

So I got to a point where I began to feel something like: "You know… I'm limited to expressing my thoughts/perspectives on the deaf community only when and if someone asks me. I'm letting my thoughts/perspectives go to waste. I should do something about this."

I thought about starting a blog site but I was worried about it sitting in the internet void unnoticed by the deaf community. I don't have any personal social media platforms except for my main reddit account. I just simply hate Facebook, Instagram, and Tik Tok. I only have stealth accounts on these for the sole purpose of following the trends of the deaf community and some other stuff. I don't have any social media accounts connected to people I know in real life.

So, because of this, I don't really have a way to "advertise" my written posts.

That's how I settled on reddit. I am a really old Redditor myself. I have been around this site since its inception. I have a main account out there with essentially no post history, just years worth of comment history in subreddits based around my hobbies and interests. I don't use that account to engage with the r/deaf community here.

So… yeah, reddit became the obvious platform of choice for me. I saw reddit, and r/deaf specifically, as a way to engage directly with the deaf community. I also really liked that r/deaf is a community with 45,000 members.

I especially liked that the members in this community are insanely diverse. There are big "D" Deaf people, lower "d" deaf people, people with a degree of hearing loss who know ASL, people with a degree of hearing loss who don't know ASL, CODAs, ASL interpreters, and all kinds of deaf people imaginable. This is my ideal target audience. There's no other community like this one anywhere on the internet.

After figuring out a memorable username, I started posting here just over a year ago.

---

When I began posting here, I was already aware that this subreddit was full of the repetitive "I just turned deaf, what do?" "I'm struggling with SSI" "Which accessibility tech do you recommend" posts. I really don't have any problem with these kinds of posts. I just wanted to talk to an online community of deaf people about our community's current events, politics, history, and culture. So I set out to fill that gap in this subreddit.

I was expecting my posts to coexist side-by-side next to the typical posts we see in this subreddit.

I didn't anticipate that I would cause quite a bit of friction in this community. It took me a year to finally realize that I was shaking up the status quo in this community.

In my posts about NAD, RID, and some other rather controversial topics, I've attracted a certain crowd of people who are deeply upset with the fact that I'm here on reddit posting about these kinds of stuff.

And look here. I don't mind criticism. I don't mind disagreements. I don't mind people taking on views that counter my views.

… I just can't stand being told that I should NOT be posting the kinds of stuff that I do.

I. JUST. CAN’T!

I, deep in my heart, know that I'm making the deaf community a better place by initiating the conversations that I do. I am deeply offended at the insinuations that I should NOT be starting these kinds of conversations and that I need to conform to the status quo.

This subreddit isn't the only place that I've caused friction. One of my posts in r/blind got removed. I posted about finding out that Ray Charles went to Florida School for the Deaf and Blind. They removed it because it wasn't about blindness itself. I mean, I think a post about one of the most famous blind people to have ever lived is relevant to r/blind.

Also, I posted my "Fuck you, Dale" that I made here in r/deaf in r/disability and sent the mods over there into a panic mode. They removed it because "THIS IS A POLITICAL POST! YOU'RE SETTING THIS SUBREDDIT ON FIRE! WE DON'T POST STUFF LIKE THAT HERE!" I mean, excuse me for thinking that it is relevant to r/disability that there is an Idahoan politician who thinks we shouldn't be getting money from the education system for our accessibility needs and that we should be getting money from the medical/hospital system (implying that we should be raised institutionalized).

These experiences, in addition to my experience here in r/deaf, taught me that people are accustomed to having these kinds of subreddits focus on their "-ness." As in, their blindness, their disability-ness, and their deafness. And when I showed up posting about a politically charged topic, a certain crowd of people here loses their mind.

I also went through a few "incidents" that really gave me a reason to fear that I would eventually make a post that gets me banned from this community. I really don't want to lose this community.

One of those incidents happened a few months ago and it completely crushed my spirit.

Ever since, I've been posting about a few cool stuff around the community but they're all the kinds of stuff that I knew wouldn't be controversial in this community. I don't mind writing posts like these but it really kills me that I've been holding back on a lot of posts that I really wanted to make.

Posts like, for example:

• The NAD CEO search drama
• RID CEO search drama
• Why the deaf community is so angry at RID
• The deaf community's lack of self-advocacy education
• Interpreter licensure laws
• How Eliza Kragh lost her lawsuit against Montana Association of the Deaf (this one is a complete farce)
• Genetic editing and how it likely spells the death of the deaf community
• The shutdown of Arizona School for the Deaf and Blind's Tucson campus
• Texas School for the Deaf's terrible display of leadership over the past year
• The recent fallout in Colorado's deaf community
• The mainstream program vs. deaf school debate
• The deaf community's internalized ableism
• What policies like the Rehab Act of 1973, IDEA, and ADA means to our community and how we should address the flaws these policies have caused for us
• The enigma surrounding Dorian Yanke's likely suicide
• A mysterious deaf black John Doe from Jacksonville, IL
• A series of major oppressions that the deaf community faced from the hearing world over the last two centuries

I've made 76 posts and I have 196 post drafts in my "Helen" folder. I've written a lot of posts where I ended up at a roadblock because I've written stuff that I know will make a certain crowd of people here in this community upset.

So, about two months ago, I realized that I needed to create a space here on reddit dedicated to these kinds of posts. I've spent the last two months figuring out a subreddit name.

I've settled on r/HelensDeafClub.

(Author's note: that subreddit isn't open yet.)

This subreddit will be dedicated to conversations about the deaf community's current events, politics, culture, and history. I've completed writing up the rules, flairs, and a pinned post that introduces the subreddit. I also have a rule that is specifically aimed at people who find these kinds of contents to be objectionable.

Right now, I'm working on ten fresh long-form posts to be available for you guys to read when I launch the subreddit. In my mind, these posts will help set the tone for the subreddit. I aim to open this subreddit just before the NAD's upcoming conference.

Maybe I should open it sooner rather than later because one of my plans for that subreddit is to spend an hour every day scraping news from the deaf community and posting them in that subreddit. My goal with doing that is to make my subreddit a centralized place for all of the daily news that pops up in the deaf community. And I can just spend some time every day working toward a long-*ass post that I'm known for and drop it when it's ready.

I don't know. You tell me.

I also received a DM that suggested I start my own Substack for my long-form content. That was a great suggestion. I'm actively thinking about how I will launch that but this is something that will come further down the line rather than soon.

So here you go.

Again, I cannot express how grateful I am for the love I've received from my recent rant post.

Thank you for reading!

Helen <3

Helen.

For the last two weeks, every single post from this community that hit my front page are all from hearing people asking dumb question about us the deaf people or people who suddenly discovered that they’re deaf and come in here to say “I’m deaf, wat do?”

I’m speaking to you the actual deaf people right now. Why are you not posting anything here!?

Am I the only deaf redditor on the planet!? Do I live in a stimulation!? Did I fucked up and swallowed the blue pill instead of the red pill!?

Does Reddit scare you or what!? Or does reading make your eyes bleed!?

You complain about hearing people occupying deaf space all day long and this subreddit has 45,000 subscribers! There has to be some of you people out there! Start posting shit here! Reclaim this community!

—

The two biggest organizations in our community (NAD and RID) are having an epic fuck-up with hiring a CEO!

Arizona School for the Deaf and Blind just shut down their Tucson campus and the deaf community can’t shut up about it! For a good reason! Because it is a casualty of the fucking MAGA!

A deaf lady from somewhere in Pennsylvania or whatever killed her deaf niece!

Pi00a got money on shark tank! FUCK YEAH! FUCK CSD! I WILL NEVER FORGIVE CSD FOR KILLING MOZZERIA!

Fucking Disney CGI’d some lame Pixar songs in ASL and I CANT FUCKING UNDERSTAND SHIT! And Leila Hanaumi is going around “guys… you just gotta understand how amazing this is 👁️👄👁️”

Fucking Italy just released a remake of the CODA movie! IM GOING TO FUCKING WATCH THAT ON NETFLIX TONIGHT! OKAY!?

FDA just approved a gene therapy that can cure deafness! And Trump bragged about this! Gallaudet University made a statement in a response to this! WE ARE GOING TO FUCKING DIE! AAAHHHHHH!

—

And this subreddit is nothing but endless posts about “me learn ASL or no?” “Hearing person here. Why do deaf people swivel their heads to see things? Is it a trauma response no?” “Do money grow on trees? Because people be saying I need to pay for my hearing aids” "Hearing here. There is a deaf person at my work and I wanna fuck her. Please provide detailed instruction on how I can fuck her. And, no, I won't learn ASL lmao"

It’s the same thing on discord! I joined deafcord last month and went “Hi, I’m Helen. So have you heard about the RID’s failed CEO search process? And NAD’s CEO finalists?”

“WE DONT TALK ABOUT THAT HERE!”

“Whoa, whoa. Why not? More than 15 states have interpreter licensure laws and if RID fall, it’ll affect tens of thousands deaf people. NAD is the reason why we can buy insurance and get a driver’s license so if they also fall, that’ll have quite bit of an impact. Why can’t I talk about it here with my fellow deaf people?”

“WE DONT CARE FOR A MOTHERFUCKING REASON! WE ARE TALKING ABOUT A SWEATER THAT I KNITTED TODAY HERE! GO AWAY!”

I CANT FUCKING EVEN!

You! You deaf people! Start posting shit here! I’m fucking sick of this subreddit being full of mindless shit!

We can’t hear! So let me scream here! AAAHHHHH!

Come on people! Scream with me! AAAHHHHH!

I’m as mad as hell and I won’t take this anymore!

Anyway, can’t wait to open up my new subreddit for this purpose. I’m done with everything but I want to have like 10 fresh long ass post ready to go. I’m thinking about opening it just before the NAD conference.

I’m going to go and watch Hedwig and the Angry Inch with my CI on now to calm down.

Thanks for reading!

: D

Helen