So here's a hard question for us all to think about. I've turned off replies because I mean it when I say think about it, I don't wanna hear it in my mentions.

I'm seeing a lot of people declare they will always wear masks forever now and that's fine, bodily autonomy and all. But I'm hard of hearing and dependent on your voice being loud and clear AND being able to lip read to be able to understand you.

This past year has been an exercise in me not being able to communicate with anyone because, yknow, I can't understand what the fuck you're saying because you won't speak up and enunciate behind your mask and I can't see your mouth.

So ok, you've decided you're wearing a mask for the rest of your life every time you leave the house. The hard question I need you to sit with is: what are you going to do to be able to communicate with people like me?

Because let me assure you, none of you are speaking loudly and clearly enough even though you think you are. My policy is I will ask you to repeat yourself twice and then give up. Whether I tell you I'm ending the conversation because you refuse to make yourself understood?

Honestly it depends on how much energy I have that day. And how bad my tinnitus is, because it's variable.

I can't speak for everyone who's hard of hearing or deaf but I know how it's gonna go down for me when masks are no longer indicated to curb community spread: I'm going to choose not to interact with you, because I can't communicate with you.

If I don't have a choice, I'm going to say to you once that your mask is interfering with my ability to understand you. You're not going to fix the problem because hearing people loved to do the walk away mumble shit even before masks.

Then I'm going to ask you to find me someone else I can work with, that will accommodate my disability so I can communicate with them.

Like I can't tell you the number of times in the Before Times I asked someone to look at me and speak clearly and instead they just repeated themselves at the same low volume while looking away. Y'all never listen. You won't listen now.

So go sit with the question of whether you're willing to accommodate the actual disability of people like me. Make a plan to do it.

For real. Especially ones that will compensate for my tinnitus. https://twitter.com/FieldsofAthnry/status/1385993220270825475?s=19