September is Deaf Awareness Month

Dear Beloveds,

September is a time for cooler weather, Pride Fest here in my home of Columbia, Missouri, and Deaf Awareness Month. International Day of the Deaf was first celebrated by the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) in 1958. The day of awareness was later extended to a full week, becoming the International Week of the Deaf (IWD). In more recent years, it’s become an entire month of celebration.

The Rev. Barbara F Meyers, the Board Secretary of EqUUal Access, wrote about her experience as a Unitarian Universalist minister with hearing loss, encouraging us to, in observance of Deaf Awareness Month:

• Learn about inclusion and accessibility, including the importance of providing captioned content or sign language interpreters in your congregation’s meetings.
• Discover ways to promote the rights of deaf people and access to education and technologies.
• Understand that deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals are just as capable and able as hearing individuals.

In honor of Deaf Awareness Month may you consider all the many blessings and gifts that we receive from the deaf community and be mindful of deaf inclusion in your congregation and all spaces every day of the year.

In Faith,
Gretchen

Gretchen Maune (she/they)
Accessibility Resources Coordinator
accessibility@uua.org

Gretchen

A Deaf Awareness Month Reflection by Rev. Barbara F. Meyers

Ministry is my second career. Many years ago, when I was in grad school preparing for my first career as a software engineer. My Research Director was Dr. Dan Berry who had severe hearing loss. He wore hearing aids and relied heavily on lip-reading to understand what people were saying. When he was speaking to someone, he faced them directly and concentrated on their face to be able to lip-read what they were saying. I found that quite special because he really tried to be present in the moment with you when he was listening. I used to marvel at how accurate his understanding was. I never had trouble getting him to understand me or me to understand him.

Later in my mid-thirties, I realized that I was having trouble hearing what people were saying and I had to ask them to repeat it. I spoke with Dan and he told me to have my hearing tested by an audiologist. When I did, I learned that I had hearing loss especially at high frequencies, and I started wearing a hearing aid which helped a lot. Over time, my hearing has been slowly getting worse, and I now wear two hearing aids and have learned that I need to supplement it with lip reading to understand speech. Having captions on movies and online meetings is essential for me to understand what is being said.

There are several categories of hearing loss, and each has way different way that people with them can cope with them.

Mild hearing loss: A person may hear speech, but soft sounds are hard to hear, such as whispers or the consonants on the end of words like 'shoes' or 'fish'.

Moderate hearing loss: A person may hear another person speaking at a normal level but have difficulty understanding what he or she is saying. You might hear the vowels within a sentence, but not hear the consonants. This makes comprehending a sentence almost impossible.

Severe hearing loss: A person may hear little to no speech of a person talking at a normal level and only some loud sounds. Very loud sounds, such as a car horn, wouldn't startle one the same way as it would to a person with normal hearing.

Profound hearing loss: A person doesn't hear any speech — only very loud sounds — and you feel the vibrations of only the loudest of sounds.

Some hearing losses are present at birth, like Dan’s, and some develop over time, like mine. It is also possible to have sudden hearing loss.

My hearing loss is between mild and moderate hearing loss, and Dan’s hearing loss is between severe and profound.

The way that people cope with hearing loss differs. Using hearing aids, lip-reading and captions works for me for most things. If I am in a large group, microphones are essential for me to hear.

Some people with severe or profound hearing loss will learn ASL and join a culture, called Deaf Culture which consists of people who also communicate with ASL.

Not all people choose to do so. Dan told me that he was against people with hearing problems learning ASL because they wouldn’t be able to communicate with people in the larger community who didn’t know ASL. I know that this view is not shared by many people who are deaf.

My experience of coping with my hearing loss in UU settings, in my congregation and in UUA and UUMA meetings, has had its ups and downs. Microphones are important and when I ask that they be used, people generally comply, and I don’t have to ask again. In Zoom meetings, ubiquitous since Covid, I have sometimes had to explain to the leaders of groups how to enable captions. After I have done this, things generally work out well for me. One thing that has been difficult is understanding people when they are wearing masks, because I can’t lip-read. This is a difficult situation because I understand that people wear masks to keep themselves safe from covid. I especially like it when I don’t have to be the one asking for captions or microphones because it is built into the culture of the congregation.

Here are some suggestions on how you can observe the Deaf Awareness Month:

• Learn about inclusion and accessibility, including the importance of providing captioned content or sign language interpreters in your congregation’s meetings.
• Discover ways to promote the rights of deaf people and access to education and technologies.
• Understand that deaf and hard of hearing individuals are just as capable and able as hearing individuals.

Rev. Barbara F. Meyers
Board Secretary, EqUUal Access

Rev. Barbara F. Meyers is a Unitarian Universalist community minister whose ministry focuses on mental health issues, affiliated with Mission Peak Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Fremont, California. She works as assistant director of Life Reaching Across to Life, a peer-support mental health center in Fremont. She is the author of The Caring Congregation Handbook and Training Manual—Resources for Welcoming and Supporting Those with Mental Disorders and their Families into Our Congregationsand has produced a public access TV show, Mental Health Matters.

Accessible Books from Skinner House

Skinner House Books is in the process of releasing e-books with alt text image descriptions, increasing accessibility and inclusion for blind and low-vision readers!

The first of these books is none other than “Authentic Selves: Celebrating Trans and Nonbinary People and their Families" available via Apple Books. Other platforms will be available soon.