I know exactly what you mean about how the authors seem to cross a line, I absolutely do. While I was born deaf, I was wildly successful with hearing aids — you can’t tell from my speech that I can’t hear. So there is no question I grew up with, and accepted the whole hearing culture until the last few years.

However. I am only now learning to sign, precisely because the decision was taken away from me & my parents because of scare tactics by hearing doctors and such. And at my age (40+) I have finally realized that English is not my true language. It *cannot* be. I can send, but I can’t receive. Communication absolutely has to go both ways or it’s fundamentally crippled, no matter how much lipstick you put on the pig. It took me a long, long, long time to understand this, because it seems so *fundamental* to speak and try to hear if you can.

You might find some of my entries at my blog of interest — from the earliest entries on to the most recent (I’ve taken a summer break), you can see the progression of realization of just what the hearing world does to deaf people.

Now, I do agree that different approaches are needed to bring in the new-to-all-this parents of a deaf child; however the anger you object to is very real, and deserves respect in its own right. Deaf people have been colonized for centuries, the Milan conference and its consequences for the following century is simply the latest one.