Like my mother, I am hard of hearing. Decades on, I face many of the problems she did | Tharā Gabriel

“Trinidad and Tobago has many notable attributes but, sadly, deaf awareness and public sensitisation to deaf culture is not one of them. The last 50 years of family experiences, added to my personal observations, show we still face the same problems, with deaf and hard-of-hearing people still being novelties. It’s simply not our society. It may be a harsh assessment but this is my reality.”

Three years on from writing that, I am still lip reading and winging it. The upshots of a pandemic; climate, economic and migration crises; flagrant infringements on basic human rights; mass protests; country invasions; wars; terrorism; and, more importantly for people who are deaf and hard of hearing (HoH), a catalysed evolution of AI and technology relating to our personal and professional methods of communication. Yet, here in Trinidad and Tobago … not much has changed – accessibility is still a delusion.

Daily, I encounter visible discomfort when I refer to myself as HoH; whether it be in the public or professional sphere, a rideshare driver or a colleague. With the former, it doesn’t matter how many times I say, “I’m hard of hearing, I need to read your lips”, drivers insist on launching immaterial questions over music from the radio, traffic noise, facing forward, then expect an answer. I get that, culturally, Trinidadians love “smalls” (small talk) and so at times I make an effort, but more often than not my response is an unimpressed blank stare.

It would also seem that there is an inverse relationship between security and accessibility. Local banking institutions apparently believe that information can only be validated, or credit cards activated via phone calls, which are routed from representatives in Latin America with accents indecipherable even to my hearing acquaintances. My sister has graciously impersonated me on more than one call because, what else?

In a post-pandemic world, the proliferation of security screens at service points, which considerably dampen sound and are often completely blacked out, has made it impossible to hear or read lips and therefore understand anything in banks, hospitals, petrol stations, wire transfer locations or even my favourite discount furniture store.

Recently I visited a banking hall and a medical lab, and when I indicated I was HoH and needed to read lips, the teller and the phlebotomist stopped speaking and started writing and gesturing. The teller, wearing a mask behind a thick security screen, first decided to lean forward and I suppose he attempted to speak louder – I can’t be sure – but if I can’t see you, I can’t hear you. Customer service representatives remain painfully unaware of how to serve the differently abled, and training is not provided to rectify this. After several traumatic experiences in hospitals stemming from this, I have been consigned to spending many dollars more than the average (hearing) person on private medical care just to enjoy a modicum of accessibility. Misconceptions relating to levels of deafness are very much the norm.

Gabriel says her sister sometimes has to impersonate her on the phone. Photograph: Cristiano Mohammed/The Guardian

In the professional sphere, colleagues are either genuinely fascinated with the way I communicate and avid to learn more, or they say: “I don’t even see you as ‘hearing impaired’,” which might help them deal with their latent audism … but doesn’t benefit any HoH person. As an administrative and communications consultant who mostly works remotely, I have made it my mission to teach all clients, project partners and colleagues how to activate and use closed captions, live transcripts and AI summaries in all mainstream video conferencing software. This is extremely helpful in the virtual workplace, but accommodations for audio-assistive technology are still nonexistent in local offices and physical meetings and conferences.

While I do have an aversion to hearing aids for various reasons, after observing my elder sister operate professionally and converse with my niece while in another room, off the strength of two hearing aids – I may be willing to give them another chance. In the interim, the ambient sound mode on Samsung’s Galaxy Buds2 Pro is a boon. So no, colleagues, I am not listening to music during our physical meetings, just amplifying your voice. And while WhatsApp is increasingly used for corporate communications, and voice notes are easier than typing, until WhatsApp launches a built-in transcription feature – please type.

On a more positive note, it has been fulfilling to broaden my advocacy for accessibility and inclusion specifically through fashion, as a HoH model for a popular Caribbean workwear clothing label and a proud co-founder of the gem that is Theodora.

It is truly disappointing that many of the complaints that my mother had as a HoH child decades ago, I still have. At the national level, developments toward Trinidad and Tobago being an accessible society have stagnated and, at times, even been retrogressive. The institutions that are meant to serve deaf and HoH people spin in circles on collective issues with a revolving door of hearing staff committed to inaction.

For me, the fight for accessibility is still an advocacy of one.

• Tharā Gabriel is a creative communications professional from Trinidad and Tobago.