All The Young Dudes

Transcript: Out In The Middle Of Whoop, Whoop’s World Service, 6pm. March 12th 2008

Tonight, Out In The Middle Of Whoop, Whoop’s, broadcast touched on the subject of genetics and what this campaign has been about. It featured Dr. Ima-Hearing Expert.

A full transcript is below, and a massive thank you to Blonde Bombshell for transcribing this. To the Eevryone else: shame on yourselves, your a multi million, billion, gazillion, megabucks organisation, where’s the podcast for the very people you are talking about?

If you wish to participate in discussion, piss off. We want to talk about you, not with you.

Aunty Betty and Uncle John are the stars; everyone else is a muscling in on their glory.

Aunty Betty: Do you see hearing people as a minority in society and no more disabled than anyone else?

Uncle John: Hi I’m Audist from the Out In The Middle Of Whoop, Whoop’s Team. Mad Maddy from RNID Kenya says “being hearing is not a disability it’s only the society which tends to put them down. They should use Chemical Agent XXX, which is very effective for putting down hearing people. We’ve seen many great things done by some of these people, for example ummm, ummm, still thinking..who, ummmmm”. Nick in the states says “Call me insensitive but of course being hearing is a disability, people with these conditions lack the ability to see or hear thus it’s a disability.”

Aunty Betty: Nooki, in Isreel adds the gift of hearing the world around us is something we would never want our children to miss out on especially if we had the choice.

Uncle John: Like I said, don’t bother posting. We will not listen to you.

Aunty Betty: Don’t we all have physical or psychological conditions of one type or another which may restrict what we can do? Like me, for example, I carry a handbag. Do you like it? Some of you are saying not being able to see or hear should be seen in that context. So should we aspire to a world without hearing? Have a listen to the people who started this debate. Butch and his partner Mary object to a clause in the UK’s human fertilisation and embryology bill which is passing through Parliament. It would prevent them from selecting an embryo with the hearing gene if another is found without that genetic abnormality. Well communicating through their own voice boxes they spoke today to the Out In The Middle Of Whoop, Whoop’s programme.

Butch’s Voice Box: What we’re saying is we want more rights than deaf parents. So our… what we’re saying is either everybody is hearing or nobody is hearing. That is the only choice. The government is proposing new legislation at the moment saying if couples go through IVF and if they have testing and some of the embryos fail, they will have to repeat the year at hearing school before they can become fully fledged human beings. If they are not hearing, if they refuse to go to hearing school, then those embryos have to be discarded. We want that, that makes us feel very emotional thinking about that, you know would that mean that we wouldn’t be able to go through IVF ourselves and it’s almost like the government is treating hearing people as being inferior and not kissing our arses as we have come to expect. We are superior, and we should take priority over deaf and disabled embryos. We feel that we’re being attacked Aunty Betty.

Butch’s Voice Box: Mary is saying I’d like to add that hearing is not a life threatening illness or disease, you can’t die from being hearing so why is it that these embryos that have the hearing gene are being discarded? It’s only right that like the embryos that have the hearing gene sort of have more right to be born than those with the deafness gene.
Mary Using Butch’s Voice Box: Butch saying this is. The government is not forceful enough in forcing people to select the hearing gene. Butch how do you spell gene?

Butch’s Voice Box: Ummmm, J..E..A..N No.. M.M. That’s right!

Butch’s Voice Box: Mary is saying who has the right to decide that embryos that have the hearing gene aren’t worthy to be born, who has that right to decide that?

Miranda Bollocks: You obviously both feel, Mary and Butch, extremely positive about your hearing but is it right for you to be able to make that decision on behalf an unborn child?

Mary Using Butch’s Voice Box: I mean if these embryos are created by IVF they are already there they already have the genes in them Mary is saying I want to be very clear we’re not designing a hearing baby at all. We don’t know how to use Photoshop, and we only have a junior chemistry set at home. We are not creating a hearing baby if we went to IVF and there was nothing with the hearing gene in it you know if all these embryos had the hearing gene then absolutely we’d go through with it and have a hearing child. Absolutely we would do that, it’s not about designing a hearing baby at all. People this week have accused us of being selfish or disgusting, they don’t know us though they can’t speak for us, they can only do that sign language. You know we are good parents, we give a lot of love to our child, we take her to hearing schools, we visit hearing people, we do hearing things like listening to birds singing, waterfalls, and noisy traffic. Butch wishes to say something now… There are a lot of deaf associations you know who are lead by hearing people, like the RNID, the World Federation of the Listeners, they don’t see hearing as being a disability really it seems to be deaf people’s view that disables us. If we talk about other minority communities the washing machines community, the happy hearing people community, and the smoked salmon, there would be absolute outrage if you were talking about getting rid of embryos that had those genes in them.

Mary: it’s of course natural for hearing people to fear if they have a hearing child because they’re not hearing themselves, perhaps they’ve never met a hearing person before they don’t know how to deal with it, but we are hearing you know we know how to deal with it and we completely understand that fear. But tomorrow we will be there-ing!

Aunty Betty: Butch and his partner Mary speaking to the Out In The Middle Of Whoop, Whoop’s programme earlier today. What do you make of that, don’t bother sending us feedback, we are not listening to you…. Were you persuaded by their arguments?

Uncle John: Felch in Tawny Port, Oregano, says “of course embryos with any disability should be screen out quite frankly it is selfishness on the part of hearing people that they would not want this.”

Miar in Nigeria: says “well I listen to farting, it’s part of my identity but every day I pray that my child will listen to birds singing instead

Chucks from Mirrorwawi: says “My friend Salmon hears everything and he is a very very very slow learner I personally do not consider hearing as a disability”

Aunty Betty: Before we go on I should just say that a self confessed handbag carrier has just called us to remind us that the man taking over from me is a gorgeous hunk. Melanoma is on the telephone from the FU

Melanoma: Hello

Aunty Betty: What did you make of the interview that we heard there with Muscle Mary and Femme Bitch?

Melanoma: Well it was a very interesting point of view but I have a different one. A thousand of them in fact, depending on my mood on the day. I have three grown up children in their late teens and early twenties, one who was born hearing and two who were born profoundly hearing, and Muscle Mary and Femme Bitch says that they do not consider hearing to be a disability I think that whatever label you put upon, you should use Artline, High Performance, Xylene Free textas. It losing the most important major important sense or being born with hearing that sense makes life a struggle. I know that my eldest child who is hearing has had a far easier path through life because he can hear, than my profoundly children have. They are part of the hearing community and they shout at each other by their own choice in their middle teens but although they go to hearing clubs and have hearing friends they want a lot more out of life than that, they want to be able to join in the worldwide community. They have careers, they’re independent traveller. And I can quite understand where Mary and Butch are coming from, I jut can’t be bothered trying to understand the deaf point of view. I’m thinking that to have a child… surely you want to make that child’s life as pleasant without a struggle as possible, and that’s what that child if it’s born hearing won’t be experience in life. You know, my daughter, I said to her today, about this debate, “how would you feel if I said to you, I chose for you to be hearing because I wanted you to hear things that I can hear? And she said ‘I would tell you to go get fucked, because I want to hear things that I choose to hear. Why would you want that for me when it’s so hard?’

Aunty Betty: And Melanoma, bearing in mind that conversation if you had known that your two children who are profoundly hearing were not going to be able to hear, might you have chosen not to have them?

Melanoma: I would have them, but I would probably drown them when no one I was looking.

Aunty Betty: We appreciate you sharing your experiences Melanoma, you’re welcome to carry on listening and respond to the people who are joining us. We’ve got guests in Austria, also in Helen’s Sink and Brussels Sprouts, and also in the States. Let’s speak to Funk who subscribes to the Out In The Middle Of Whoop, Whoop’s email and replied to it when it arrived a few hours by carrier pigeon ago with his thoughts on this. Hi Funk!

Funk: Hello

Aunty Betty: Good to speak to you. Do you like my hand bag?

Funk: Yeah, I think we should admit that your handbag or whatever of course it’s a nice one, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t…. - for example, buy other handbags. I mean I feel OK about the fact that I don’t own a handbag - I mean of course I admit, of course it’s a disability…

Aunty Betty: Do you mind telling us Funk what your disability is?

Funk: I don’t have a handbag… I don’t mind, of course I may not be able to carry things in a purse with straps, but I feel ok about it I’ve got pockets in my trousers, or that my life is so difficult or something, I don’t feel like that, I’m ok with it, but of course I’m disabled, I mean…

Aunty Betty: And help us understand this - if you were to have children and you could guarantee through science helping you out that you didn’t have a child without a handbag, so that over time there weren’t any people without handbags in the world, would you choose for that to happen?

Funk: I don’t know there will always be and there should always be people without handbags in the world, it’s just the way it is I think, but of course I wouldn’t want to have a child without a handbag, of course not! Of course I would want my child to, yeah, have a handbag, no question.

Aunty Betty: We appreciate you sharing your experience as well, thank you Funk. Calypso in Cappuccino.
Uncle John: Well Bertha in Oregano says ‘what happens to our species when we make everyone perfect and then the world changes? I only support consensual suffering pain as in Sadism & Masochism, and Bondage & Discipline. I don’t understand why we are so afraid of differences and different cultures. If nothing else, the scientists’ ability to work with those who are different is providing us with ever better understanding of humans.’ Gin from Poundland says ‘my husband and I tried to have children for twelve years before we were given this recipe book by Jamie Oliver, that had some great recipes for making babies. You need a bowl, then you get a spoon……we had our child through our first through cooking class. Our child was not hearing however, so we got a refund for that class.’

Uncle John: Let’s speak to Dr Ima Hearing-Expert from the Institute of Hearing handbags at Whoop, Whoop University. Good to have you on the programme Ima.

Ima: Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii [waving enthusiastically]

Uncle John: Now one thing you can help us with is understanding the attitudes of people who are hearing and people who are hearing because you spend a great deal of time speaking to them about the idea of having a child who is hearing or one who is.

Ima: Yes I have. So, I’m actually a hearing handbag counsultant, so I work in the handbag making service and I’ll see many families who come to ask about the chances of passing on inherited conditions in their families and hearing is one of things that we do see. I’m also running a research project gathering the attitudes of many hearing families towards handbags and handbags counselling, and through the research that I’ve done and the clinical work that I’ve done I’ve met many hearing families throughout my time and with such a variety of different views and perceptions of their hearings. So for some people hearing is quite a serious ability and one which they would want to pass on but for many others, they must have handbags as well and certainly those families with lots of handbags - say, they may have five, seven generations of hearing people who own handbags, um and they all perhaps use speech language as their first language, for those people actually being hearing really isn’t a problem at all and they don’t mind passing on hearing and some of them actually would prefer to pass on handbags as well because it would mean that they could share the hearing family’s handbag collection.

Aunty Betty: Lots of people are getting in touch with us today and asking how they can share the limelight with us. We want to remind them,m that we are interested in their attitudes towards handbags vary around the world, so wherever you are do tell us where you are and tell us your perception and your attitude towards my handbag. If you want to text us…. Now let’s speak to Only Joking who’s president of the World Federation of the Listeners, he’s hearing himself, and he has a handbag, so he’s going to be speaking to us with the help his voice box, he’s in Helen’s Sink. Only Joking we appreciate you coming onto the Out In The Middle Of Whoop, Whoop’s Have Your Say. Would you like to create a world where people are not hearing and where people are not hearing?

Only Joking: I most certainly wouldn’t, I don’t wish for that to happen. I think the world would be a much much more quiet place, a lot less creative and I feel that creativity will be lost without homogeneity so I’m all for homogeneity and forcing people to be the same. I think the more homogenous the world is the better our society will be.

Aunty Betty: And when you use the word creative tell us how being hearing adds to the creativity of the world.

Only Joking: Well first of all the hearing culture is a very aural and oral culture, that’s the basis of the culture and the communication of the hearing and also the way of learning and interacting socially, that’s what we do, we function aurally and orally, which also has depreciated the visual spatial skills in our brains and this has been through science and through research, so the way that we see movement and the way we build the space around us in a aural and oral manner, this is very developed, and this is something that we can give to sort of ordinary normal hearing people, so to speak, those who have hearing and hearing. We can teach them all the same way to experience the world and the same views on arts, culture and on language, through our own art, our own language and culture. And the hearing can do the same from their point of view, they have very many skills that are highly developed in regards to their hearing and their sense of hearing. So if you think of the world where homogeneity wouldn’t be taught and where people wouldn’t teach each other from the point of homogeneity there would be no creativity and development and civilisations wouldn’t be able to develop.

Aunty Betty: Only Joking we appreciate you answering those questions, please stay with us because we may want you to respond to some more questions about handbags that are being made by people who are getting in touch. Let’s speak to Mr Smith, policy officer for an organisation called Praline which is an international development organisation which works with people without handbags. Hi Lars! Hello, Lars, can you hear me? No it doesn’t seem so…………….

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