"What's the Difference Between Hearing Aids & Puberty Blockers?" [001]
In The New Atlantis's 2025 summer issue, David Polansky wrote an article entitled "What's the Difference Between Hearing Aids & Puberty Blockers?". The piece contrasts Deaf1 and transgender activism. On first glance, these groups seem to have opposite attitudes, with Deaf activists opposing new technologies and transgender activists embracing them: stay within nature's silence versus journey to transform nature's construction. But Polansky argues both these frameworks are founded on a skepticism of the "natural" body, as he lays out below. (I've added in the bold.)
"Yet despite the incongruity of the two activist positions on the surface, the share a deeper foundation: a profound ambivalence about nature as a standard for health. The salient factor in understanding them both is not the practical question -- to intervene or not to intervene? -- but a philosophical one. Where does nature stand in relation to these procedures? The implicit answer in both cases is: nowhere. Nature is an unfit mother. Not only can it throw us into the world with misses senses, it can deliver us into the wrong bodies as well. But in the choice of replacing or accepting what we are given, nature as such as no longer guide us. The question is what, if anything, can."
Deaf activists rejected hearing as a standard to which human bodies should be judged. In the early 1990s, some activists fought against cochlear ear implants, especially for young children, as they saw this technology as "[representing] a threat to the continued existence of deaf culture... some of the more strident voices went further, arguing that widespread administering of implants amounted to cultural genocide." From what I remember of a college course on writing about disability -- taught by a grad student who was deaf and used a cochlear ear impact -ā some Deaf parents also deliberately rejected cochlear implants for their deaf children, as they wanted them to stay within the Deaf community and experience Deaf culture. Similarly, some transgender activists argue that with the wealth of modern technologies, from puberty blockers to hormone replacement therapies to surgeries, one should be allowed to shape one's body however one pleases: "human agency should override any natural status, [and]... people should be free to choose their sex and their gender regardless of biological facts." Itās very anecdotal, but Iāve seen this attitude in online spaces, such as the idea that all tweens, whether cis or trans, should have access to puberty blockers and not be forced to go through puberty until they're ready for all its changes2.
Contrasting to this attitude, Polansky resists the rejection of the natural body. Born deaf and given a cochlear ear implant, he deeply appreciates his ability to have conversations, listen to music, and be a part of the hearing world. "...I am still using nature as a standard," he writes, relying on hearing aids "because I have some conception of normal, natural hearing... and I am not convinced that, just because some people are born with hearing and others without, both are natural in the same way."
I'm sympathetic to the idea of rejecting the natural body altogether. If nature's going to sweep us down a current full of terrible infections and painful childbirth and blurry vision, why shouldn't we swim against the waves with antibiotics and epidurals and eyeglasses? Yet I find myself quite sympathetic to Polansky's perspective, too, and ultimately I canāt reject nature as one such guiding standard for health and well-being.
As Polansky points out, staunchly 'rejecting nature' can leave out inconvenient facts, such as deafness being linked to other unhappy conditions, like mental illness, or that deaf people will be set apart from the auditory hearts of human cultures, such as singing songs together or dancing to music. That tradeoff may be worth it, however one defines worth, but it is a tradeoff. I think itās possible to believe in the idea of a 'natural' body without demeaning someone because they don't fit exactly into that box. Someone who's deaf might not have access to the full experience of the human senses, but one doesn't have to deny that lack by saying it isn't a lack at all or paint deafness as some horrible, awful tragedy3.
A final observation, and one Polansky only lightly touches on -- given itās a live wire issue ā- is how children have a key symbolic role within both Deaf and transgender activism. For children who are born deaf, cochlear ear implants have the best chance of working well (say, the ability to hear sounds in a range of volumes) when the implants are given when they're very young, sometimes only a few months old. At those ages, kids canāt decide for themselves what they want, and it becomes a choice for parents and/or doctors instead. For transgender kids, their conceptions of puberty and fertility are abstract and un-experienced, and so they have to rely on adults around them to offer advice or approve certain medications and procedures. Perhaps some of my skepticism of rejecting nature comes down to this, too: the idea that one can have complete control over and understanding of oneās body, whatever your age or situation, so any limitations on bodily autonomy must be unjust and unacceptable. But thatās a whole other can of fish at ponder on a later date.
Until next time & wishing you ease, B
The National Association of the Deaf describes the difference as: "Do you recommend capitalizing the term 'Deaf' for an individual or for the community and culture? / Using the capital 'D' as in 'Deaf Culture' is best used when describing the culture, community, or identity of those who are part of the sign language community and believe in celebrating that they are Deaf. If a person is part of that Deaf Community or Deaf Culture, they may identify as a Deaf person. So the term can be capitalized for both an individual and for the community and culture. / By contrast, using a lower case 'd' for the word 'deaf' would be often be used as a way to identify a person who has the requisite hearing level to qualify as deaf without knowing for sure whether that person is part of the Deaf Community. When referring to all deaf and hard of hearing people, the lower case is usually used." Polansky uses "deaf" throughout the entirety of his piece.↩
Of course, you have to be careful on the internet not to mix up lulz shitposting with sincere opinions, and itās possible this one was more the former than later.↩
There can also be a deep cruelty in denying the losses that can come with disabilities. I'm thinking now of "Two Arms and a Head," an as-far-as-I-can-tell real essay / suicide note written by a young man who was paralyzed from his chest down after a motorcycle crash. His essay rages against other disabled people, especially disabled activists, who deny the difficulties of being paralyzed: ādisabled people can do anything abled people can!ā they say, which the author contrasts against his pain in needing an hour and a half to get ready to leave his house; no longer being able to run marathons; and the complete loss of his sex life, with his lack of sensation making sex into something grotesque and alienating, even with a woman he cares for. Reading through his essay, it seems to me that his pain originated not only from how his paralysis but also the societal denial and avoidance of that pain, and his suicide (in combination with his essay) was a way of expressing his pain so directly it could no longer be ignored.↩