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Introduction

Disability and Deaf studies have evolved dramatically in recent decades to reframe deafness not as a medical deficit but as a socio-cultural phenomenon. Gone are the days when deafness was universally seen through the lens of “loss.” Instead, emerging frameworks such as Deaf Gain have shifted the discourse to recognize deafness as contributing to human diversity and creativity. However, even within Deaf culture, dynamics of privilege and exclusion remain. Scholars have highlighted that the category “Deaf” has often privileged white, able-bodied, cisgender signers, marginalizing those whose experiences do not fit neatly into normative Deaf narratives. This paper explores the ways Deaf identities are shaped by intersectionality and history and how Deaf culture continues to resist assimilation while negotiating inclusivity.

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Deaf and deaf: Understanding Identity Distinctions

At the most basic level, not all deaf people identify culturally as Deaf. Holcomb (2023) distinguishes between “deaf” (lowercase “d”)—referring to the audiological condition—and “Deaf” (uppercase “D”)—indicating cultural identity rooted in sign language use and community affiliation. While approximately 36 million people in the U.S. are classified as hearing impaired, most are not culturally Deaf. The reasons are complex:

• Late-deafened adults often do not enter the signing community.
• Oral deaf individuals may identify more with hearing norms.
• Hard-of-hearing individuals may or may not align with Deaf culture.

Holcomb highlights that only those who adopt sign language and engage in Deaf culture are recognized as culturally Deaf.

The 90% formula, coined by Schein (1989), notes that about 90% of Deaf people are born to hearing parents, and 90% of Deaf adults have hearing children. This shapes language acquisition, with many Deaf individuals raised in oral or hearing-dominated environments before joining the Deaf community later in life.

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The Weight of History: Oralism, Audism, and Eugenics

While Deaf people have formed resilient communities, they have also faced intense oppression historically:

• Oralism: Alexander Graham Bell is perhaps the most infamous proponent. He advocated banning sign language in favor of speech and lipreading. Bell’s desire was assimilationist and steeped in ableist and eugenic ideologies. His 1883 paper, Memoir Upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race, proposed discouraging Deaf intermarriage to prevent a so-called “defective race” from forming.
• Audism: This term, coined later, describes the belief that hearing and speech are superior to deaf ways of being. Oralist practices embedded audism within educational and social institutions.
• Eugenics: Bell’s eugenics views extended beyond education to advocating systemic prevention of Deaf lineage. Though not alone in this view during his era, his prominence makes his legacy especially painful within the Deaf community.

Bell’s complex legacy is encapsulated in the controversy surrounding the naming of dormitories and institutions after him, particularly in Deaf spaces such as NTID/RIT, where resistance to audism and oralism remains central.

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Deaf Gain: Reframing Deafness as Diversity

In contrast to deficit models, Deaf Gain—a term advanced by Bauman and Murray (2014)—offers a paradigm shift. Deaf Gain celebrates deafness as contributing unique cognitive, cultural, and linguistic assets:

• Visual orientation and communication foster richer embodiment and kinesthetic awareness.
• Sign languages enrich human language diversity, offering different epistemological perspectives.
• Deaf social practices and innovations, such as visual alert systems and Deaf Space architectural principles, provide inclusive models for universal design.

As Bauman and Murray argue, “deafness looks less like a biological dead end than like another evolutionary adaptation” essential for human diversity.

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Intersectionality and the Limits of Singular Deaf Narratives

While Deaf Gain counters deficit narratives, it is not immune from critique. Ruiz-Williams et al. (2015) emphasize that mainstream Deaf culture narratives have historically centered white, able-bodied, cisgender Deaf people. Their project, “My Deaf Is Not Your Deaf,” foregrounds intersectionality to capture diverse and marginalized Deaf experiences:

“Deaf could no longer erase all other differentials; Deaf was a source of connection but not a totalizing one”.

They emphasize naming and validating multiple Deaf realities through acronyms like DDBDDHH (Deaf, DeafBlind, DeafDisabled, Hard of Hearing). This signals a commitment to inclusivity and refusal to let “Deaf” erase intersecting oppressions around race, gender, disability, and nationality.

In the same vein, Garcia-Fernandes (2020) utilizes Deaf-Latinx Critical Theory (Deaf-LatCrit) to explore how raciolinguicism, interpreter quality, and classroom exclusion shape Deaf-Latinx students’ educational experiences. She critiques mainstream Deaf education for promoting essentialist narratives that ignore racialized Deaf experiences:

“The same issue has now been repeated continuously for 56 years” when it comes to educational inequities affecting racially minoritized Deaf students.

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Educational Inequities and Intersectional Erasure

Educational institutions reflect the challenges facing multiply marginalized Deaf individuals:

• Racial disparities: Deaf Students of Color, especially Deaf-Latinx, face lower graduation rates and less access to college degrees than white Deaf peers.
• Ableism within Deaf spaces: DeafBlind and DeafDisabled individuals often find themselves excluded from dominant Deaf community discourses, especially when sign language privileging vision becomes a gatekeeping force.
• Cultural imperialism: Deaf education historically centered Eurocentric values, marginalizing Deaf students from immigrant and indigenous backgrounds.

Autoethnographies from Deaf-Latinx scholars reveal deep frustrations over invisibility and erasure within both Deaf and hearing educational institutions.

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Towards Inclusive Deaf Futures: DDBDDHH and Beyond

Contemporary Deaf studies increasingly resist single narratives. Intersectionality, as Crenshaw (1991) and Deaf scholars emphasize, is essential to build inclusive Deaf communities:

• DDBDDHH naming explicitly includes DeafBlind, DeafDisabled, and Hard of Hearing people alongside culturally Deaf signers.
• Deaf-Latinx scholarship challenges both audism and internal racism/colonialism within Deaf culture.
• Transnational perspectives highlight how nationality, language, and migration shape Deaf identities across global contexts.

While tensions remain between the desire for unity and the need for intersectional recognition, the move towards naming multiple experiences has expanded Deaf studies into a more socially just and inclusive discipline.

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Conclusion

Deaf culture is a site of profound creativity, resilience, and resistance. However, it is also a site where privilege and exclusion operate. The narratives and research discussed in this paper show the importance of intersectionality in understanding Deaf lives. The simple binary of Deaf versus hearing does not capture the nuances of being DeafBlind, DeafDisabled, Deaf of Color, Deaf LGBTQ+, or Deaf and immigrant.

As Deaf Gain has reoriented public and academic discourse away from deficit models, intersectionality pushes us to further embrace complexity and reject totalizing narratives. Future Deaf spaces and scholarship must continue this dual movement—affirming Deaf Gain while interrogating exclusions within Deaf communities themselves. Only through such honest, inclusive reflection can Deaf culture truly thrive in all its multiplicity.

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References

• Bauman, H.-Dirksen L., & Murray, J. J. (2014). Deaf Gain: Raising the Stakes for Human Diversity. University of Minnesota Press.
• Edwards, R. A. R. (2007). Chasing Aleck: The Story of a Dorm. The Public Historian.
• García-Fernández, C. (2020). Intersectionality and Autoethnography: DeafBlind, DeafDisabled, Deaf and Hard of Hearing-Latinx Children Are the Future. Journal Committed to Social Change on Race and Ethnicity.
• Holcomb, T. K. (2023). Introduction to Deaf Culture (Ch. 3). Oxford University Press.
• Ruiz-Williams, E., et al. (2015). My Deaf Is Not Your Deaf: Realizing Intersectional Realities at Gallaudet University. In It’s a Small World: International Deaf Spaces and Encounters.
• Whyte, A. (2024). Identities and Intersectionality (Week 32 Lecture Slides). SOCI-240, RIT.

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