Not Speaking Too Loudly SSD Awareness Shirt

Before I describe precisely what's going on here, I want to tell you its history. I created this slogan and retort - on a pin badge - as a gift for a single-sided deaf woman, bullied in the workplace over just this issue. I did it as a moment of solidarity across the Atlantic, because I wasn't close enough to walk in there and defend her face-to-face myself. It was just a little thing, a personal product that stunned me with how well it was received by others too. It occurred to me that there are a LOT of people who are deaf in one ear, or otherwise partially deaf, who are encountering situations like this every day. (Teaching me that I'm not alone in the process. But I'm a sarcastic individual, who learned how to stand up to bullies a long time ago.) 'Not Speaking Too Loudly' became the origin of Angry Deaf. Every item has been created with those urban, everyday, half deaf warriors in mind. Each one is a strike back against the bullies and the bigoted audists, who think that the ability to hear somehow equates having intelligence and a full range of emotions; or the unthinking and the casual audists, who exist in every family and social circle, and who cover up their embarrassment at slips with half-joking-but-dangerously-barbed quips towards its source. So far, I've had three different people, from two continents, tell me that one of my Angry Deaf products helped them smooth over a work (in one instance) or leisure (in the other two) situation. Sometimes the quietest protest, publicly displayed, works where endless conversations failed, in bringing actual communication to the fore. And for that I'm inordinately proud. From one essay into another. Here's the blarb on this unilateral deaf awareness shirt: I have been deaf in one ear since I was nine years old. I can't remember what stereo hearing sounds like; and what I've heard sounds a little fanciful to me. One of the more annoying things about those with full hearing is when they forget about my deafness. My occasional lapses in speaking volume are met with an urgent, 'Keep your voice down!'. Often it's accompanied by hand signals or gestures, which are more usually used to command a dog. This is a badge for those who want to flip things on their heads. Instead of feeling mortified or infuriated that you're being shushed, point out that if everyone was partially deaf, then you wouldn't be speaking too loudly at all. At the very least, it's a humourous way to ramp up their deaf awareness and maybe elicit a friendlier, more patient and mature way of alerting you to your apparent loudness.