Individually:
It means knowing we deserve love, respect and safety. It means feeling secure in our ideas, personal choices, right to autonomy, humanity, and d/Deaf identity.
It means that our relationships, friendships, and communities affirm the same to us.
It means that in a relationship, we are not demeaned, ignored, or belittled. Our ASL, English, or speech is not made fun of. We are not punished, shaken, hit, choked, accused, slapped, pinched, pushed, elbowed, poked, raped, beaten up, name-called, publicly humiliated, intimidated, or threatened. We do not have objects thrown at us. We are not isolated from our friends and family, held down, prevented from leaving our homes, yelled at, put down, stalked, spied on, or prevented from receiving videophone calls or TTY calls from our family and friends. Our money is not stolen. Our hearing aids are not broken or stolen. We are not threatened with harm to our children or our pets. Our doors are not beaten down because we went to another room and locked the door when we felt unsafe. We do not have our property damaged. We do not have our partner threaten to report us to INS and get us deported, or have our medical needs neglected by caregiver partners. We are not locked in a room, subjected to demeaning jokes about us, grabbed, isolated from the Deaf community, tortured, controlled, “taught a lesson,” deprived of sleep as punishment, or ordered to follow rules or be punished. We are not deprived of food, medical care, clothing, or water. We are not made to feel stupid. We are not yelled at, forced to have sex, forced into demeaning sex, drugged, forced to sell drugs, prostituted, forced to make illegal pornography, held against our will, or forced to do demeaning things.
In Our Families and Different Types of Relationships and In our Home:
It means knowing we deserve love and respect, and knowing that our ideas, personal choices, and d/Deaf identity are respected.
It means that in our relationships with family, friends, partners, roommates, caregivers, lovers, we are treated with respect.
It means that we have full access to our finances, including our own income and shared income from within a relationship, and that we are able to make financial decisions together with our partner.
It means being able to seek out and maintain employment without our partner sabotaging it, attempting to get us fired, or taking our money.
It means that no one has the right to make decisions on our behalf.
It means that we feel empowered to travel where we wish, to choose our friendships and sexual partners, and to set boundaries in our relationships with people.
It also means feeling confident and informed enough to share what we expect from sex with another person and what we expect from a relationship, and have that respected by our partner.
It means having the freedom to choose who we wish to have sex with, and what type of sex we wish to have with those partner(s) and knowing we always have the right to change our mind about it.
It means that our partner respects our desire to protect ourselves from STDs and prevent pregnancy while in a sexual relationship with them.
It means we have the right to ask for our partner’s HIV status before we decide to have sex with them. It also means we have the right to choose and use the safer sex and birth control options that work for us.
It means knowing that our partner respects our sexual orientation, respects women, our ethnicity, physicality, race, religion, and our children.
If we are religious, it means knowing that our religion does not support abuse and knowing that God does not support violence in a marriage, spiritual union, or religious practice.
It means that the person/people who love us treat us with love, respect and kindness in public and in private.
It means no shame and no secrets. It means never apologizing for someone else’s anger after we have asked them to treat us with respect. It means feeling free to laugh, to express an opinion, to have our own ideas.
It means knowing we have the right to end any relationships that we do not wish to be in anymore.
It means knowing we are intelligent and capable of making our own decisions about what is best for us.
It means knowing we made it this far in life, and have the right to continue that journey happy, healthy, and safe.
It means being confident in ourselves as parents, knowing that we can trust our gut feeling if our children appear afraid of someone or something. It means knowing our children can communicate with us freely and without fear that they will be punished for it in the home. It means our children won’t be afraid to tell us if anyone insists that they keep secrets from us that make them feel bad.
It means feeling confident that we can keep our children safe, healthy, and happy.
It means that our children can sleep at night without fear of being harmed or fear of us being harmed in the home.
It means that knowing that we can and will set boundaries with people.
It means creating a safety plan for what we will do if we are in a situation where someone made us feel uncomfortable or unsafe.
Within Our Communities:
It means that if we experience violence we will have full and immediate access to medical, legal, and law enforcement help, as well as resources and support that meets our needs as Deaf, Hard-of-Hearing, or Deaf-Blind people.
It means all of our communities would have linguistically and culturally sensitive help available for Deaf survivors of violence. Domestic violence, sexual violence, and stalking help would come from agencies that understand Deaf Culture and use ASL to help survivors.
It would also mean that diversity within the Deaf community is understood and respected in order to help survivors become empowered and to educate the public on domestic violence prevention.
It means that Audism is not the lenses through which our partners, the police, the medical system, and the legal system view and perceive us, that there is a community understanding and respect for Deaf Culture, and that our deaf/Deaf identity is respected.
It means that the community is trained regarding how to respond if they witness abuse (including how to give support to the abuse survivor).
All of this means that in our relationships, our gender, sexual orientation, deaf/Deaf identity, modes of communication, ethnicity, race, physicality, and health needs, we are respected by our partner. It means that even in the face of similarities and differences between our partner and ourselves, our partner views himself/herself as our equal. It means knowing that we deserve to be treated with respect, live without fear in our relationships, and be content with who we are.
