I recognize the power and a reclaimed self worth that comes with reframing narratives around deafness.
The lack of hearing is a disease. Because diseases are nominatively about being at dis-ease. As long as it's difficult for deaf people to socialize with those who outside the community, it dis-eases them.
Why not? We have some peculiar cultural memes related to accepting the inevitable end of life, which we perhaps should revisit. I see no reason to not consider aging itself as a slow-burn disease, one we'll hopefully cure at some point too.
This girl's disease was a genetic auditory neuropathy.
They cured her genetic auditory neuropathy.
Pedantic arguments about what it's called are missing the point. The person had a specific disease. It was cured.
In the same way there are many different kinds of cough, some due to diseases, others not, some curable, others not, yet no one pretends it's offensive to talk about curing a cough. This weird excessive sensitivity to language accomplishes nothing.
being deaf means that you live in a wholly separate world compared to a hearing person, and it changes the way you understand things- its a whole separate culture, as rich and complicated as any other. it does not compare to a cough, and many would find such a comparison very insensitive. for an example, i would check out the movie "The Sound of Metal"
I remember being taught a similar thing as a child, about referring to people with disabilities as 'differently abled' instead of 'disabled', and similarly in my home country the government has made an effort to change the word for disability from one which means "improperly able" to "blessed" (poorly translating). But the former has not stuck, and the latter has not changed how poorly disabled people are treated there. Ultimately the changes turned out to be little more than feel-good virtue signaling.
In the same way, what does not using the word 'cure' accomplish in practice? Some word needs to be used in its place, which will take on the same meaning and in a few years people will be getting offended over that too (as any way of putting it will convey the reality that deafness is considered abnormal to the typical human experience). See the progression of terms that are seen as insults to one's mental faculties as a prominent example, even just within the last 20 years of online discourse that I've been around for, we've cycled through variations of retard (tard, reet etc) and are now in the process of doing the same thing with autistic (with the emergence of euphemisms like 'artistic') since the former is now deemed a slur.
Or, using a less provocative example, we don't change our language to be accommodating of religious communities who consider certain things to be insulting to their strongly held values or beliefs. We rightly point out that facts are more important than their feelings, regardless of how many hundreds or thousands of years old their culture and beliefs are.
Edit: If coughs are insensitive, we can instead look at tumors. There are many types in all parts of the body, some are so benign that they can be ignored, others are curable, others are cancerous and still curable, and yet others are so cancerous they are quickly terminal. Additionally, people afflicted with them tend to form a community due to shared experience. But would we stop talking about tumors colloquially as something which needs to be 'cured' because a portion of those in the community don't want to (or can't) get theirs cured?
The treatment addressed a specific disease: A genetic auditory neuropathy.
It's in the subheading which is the second line when you click the link.
You're really stretching to suggest that they are trying to imply that all "lack of hearing" is a disease when even the headline talks about gene therapy and the sub heading makes it clear that it was a specific genetic disease.
This is a case of unnecessarily bringing drama to a situation that doesn't even represent that drama.
I don't know if that's the dominant view and preference, but if that's the case, perhaps we should all learn to respect their culture, as much as we're all learning to respect (up to some point) people's self-identified identities, preferred pronouns, etc. It's a matter of education and cultural change so that more people are aware and respectful.
For those saying that science should not consider people's preferences, that's true but communicating about science definitely should. At least up to some point where they're not offending a large number of people.
(..Hmm, but should they really? What about religious people who are offended by the idea of evolution..)
I can't take this too seriously. Either you accept transracial, transsexual, and amputee wannabees, or you don't. I do. Activists generally it seems don't, or at least the ones screaming the loudest.
We can also all admit that something is a disorder and still accept those people for who they are. You don't have to go all crazy and try to ban homosexuality. And you don't have to go crazy and try to destroy Rachel Dolezal. We can be respectful.
And if these some people want to view it that way to help themselves feel better or for whatever personal motives, that's their right. However, nobody else should be obligated to suspend a rational assessment of reality because of how it might offend anyone's emotional and irrational notion.
Whether it comes from a disease, and accident or something congenital, deafness is certainly at least a defect in normal human function and needs to be recognized as such by those who could strive to eliminate it as a problem.
The use of the word "cure" in this context is a perfectly logical choice of wording. Should we even consider whether some deaf people are offended by this word? It seems like the polite thing to do, but maybe it's a slippery slope that compromises the objectivity of science and clear communication of scientific findings.
Oliver Sacks has written interesting things on this subject btw.