Unfortunately, our deaf and hard of hearing community is quite divided! Captioning is the one thing that can unite us. Whether you use a hearing aid or cochlear implant or not; whether you sign or cue or don't do either doesn't matter. Whether you go to or went to a mainstream program or a school for the deaf does not matter. It does not matter if you are over 80 or under 5. All of us with hearing loss need and benefit from closed captions!
Even if you use a cochlear implant and feel that you do not need captions because your hearing is good enough to understand spoken words online, captions ensure that you do not miss anything. Captions are also a backup in the event that your implant battery dies.
Caption Action 2 needs everyone - from oral only cochlear implant users to culturally deaf signing people. It is going to take a united effort from all of us to get this bill passed!
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The DEAF are insisting dual access or they won't cooperate. Why should we caption signed stuff, learn sign yourself... Unfortunately whilst partly valid, sign does not travel well even with other deaf so some back up is vital or the deaf will just talk to themselves, the universal access form does seem to be text and not sign language, especially online, where a world deaf audience is there. ASL is then as mandarin, unintelligible to those outside America. I think this 'deaf space' is just then anopther word for isolation or closed shop. Most deaf can read that's the rub, so proving deprivation/discrimination is not going to be easy. I could insist as preference on BSL or SE only it would get me nowhere here at deaf.read. the ASL person will just by pass the vid and go to an ASL one...
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