Are Deaf People Not Allowed to Dream?
We lie to Deaf children the moment they dare to dream. We feed them slogans the system never meant to honour.
We tell them: sport is universal. We tell them: if you work hard enough, the podium is yours.
But the truth? The system was never built for them. It was built to keep them out.
Deaf athletes are not excluded by chance. They are excluded by design.
Not because they lack talent. Not because they lack discipline. But because the world has decided their Deafness is inconvenient, too complicated, too easy to erase.
This is not misfortune. This is not a “gap.” This is systematic erasure.
Policy disguised as neutrality. Silence disguised as fairness. A lie disguised as universality.
And every time we repeat it, we are not only breaking promises; we are teaching Deaf children their dreams were never meant to be real.
A Century of Proof, Ignored
The Deaflympics is not new. It is not experimental. It is not waiting for permission.
It began in Paris, 1924 before the Paralympics even existed. The IOC recognised its governing body in 1955. By 1985, it had formal patronage.
A century of Deaf brilliance, carved into history.
And yet, in November 2025, when athletes gather in Tokyo to mark 100 years, most won’t arrive with sponsors’ logos on their chests. They will arrive with GoFundMe links in their bios.
“Elite deaf athletes do not receive any Government or Lottery funding … This means myself and my teammates have to raise funds ourselves to cover all costs of competing internationally,” explains swimmer Charlotte Gower (2024).
That reality is echoed across sports:
Athletes working night shifts after training.
Athletes selling possessions to afford flights.
Athletes quitting, not because they lack talent, but because their country made their dream unaffordable.
Meanwhile, governments pour £330 million into preparing Olympic and Paralympic athletes for Los Angeles 2028 and not a penny into Deaf sport.
As one commentator put it: “They are prepared to fund fireworks over futures.”
So let’s stop pretending. This is not universality. This is not equality.
Because when your place on the podium depends on crowdfunding your uniform, the message is brutal:
Your dream is optional. Your excellence is disposable. Your inclusion is conditional.
Why Are Deaf People Excluded?
The official explanations are neat. The reality is ugly.
Not Olympic enough. There are no categories. No pathways. No funded structures. The Olympic system acts as if Deaf athletes do not exist. The truth? They could be included tomorrow but no one could be bothered to rewrite the rules. It is convenience dressed up as principle.
Not Paralympic enough. Hearing loss alone “doesn’t qualify.” Unless you are Deaf and disabled in another way, the Paralympics slams the door in your face. Deafness is treated as insufficient. As if being cut off from the world’s soundscape is not an impairment worthy of recognition.
Not profitable enough. Broadcasters look away. Sponsors chase the spotlight. No TV means no sponsors. No sponsors means no money. It is not an accident — it is a chokehold, a system engineered to starve Deaf sport until it disappears quietly.
Not simple enough. Deaf identity is not just medical; it is cultural, linguistic, human. That complexity unsettles systems built on neat impairment checklists. So rather than adapt, they exclude. Easier to erase than to redesign.
And so the verdict is not in doubt:
Too Deaf for the Olympics.
Too “able” for the Paralympics.
Too invisible for funding.
This is not oversight. This is not a “gap.”
This is deliberate exclusion; calculated, codified, normalised.
It is the world admitting, without saying it out loud: Universal sport was never universal. It was always conditional. And Deaf people were never meant to belong.
What This Means in Reality
Picture a Deaf teenager watching the Olympics, heart pounding, believing every glossy advert and polished slogan about universality.
She trains harder than anyone else. She runs faster. She breaks records in silence. She gives her childhood; every hour, every ounce of her body to her sport.
And when she finally looks to the system for recognition, it answers with this:
You don’t exist in the Olympic system.
You don’t exist in the Paralympic system.
You only exist if you can crowdfund your way into visibility.
Her dream is not hers. It is conditional. Her ceiling is lowered before she ever reaches the start line.
And what happens to her?
At first, she keeps training because that is all she knows. But the cracks begin to show. She works part-time to pay for kit, skipping meals to save for flights.
She sees athletes with funding glide past her, not because they are faster, but because their system carries them while hers spits her out.
Her friends drop away, her family sacrifice, her body breaks down under the double burden of sport and survival. And slowly, the dream that once lit her up becomes a weight she cannot afford to carry.
She quits. Not because she is weak. Not because she is unworthy. But because the world priced her out of her own dream.
And then she disappears; another Deaf athlete erased before she ever had the chance to be measured.
This is not about medals. It is about theft.
Theft of potential.
Theft of dignity.
Theft of possibility.
And the betrayal does not end at the stadium. Because what happened to her is what happens to Deaf people everywhere.
In healthcare: A missing interpreter isn’t inconvenience. It can mean the wrong diagnosis. The wrong treatment. It can mean death. (The UK High Court ruled in 2021 that failing to provide BSL at Covid briefings was unlawful.)
In education: Deaf children sit at the back, not because they lack intelligence, but because language is locked away from them. Every missed lesson shrinks their future.
In emergencies: Sirens wail. Tannoys blare evacuation orders. But silence is all that reaches Deaf ears. Safety becomes optional. Survival conditional.
In government: National briefings roll out without sign language, as if Deaf citizens do not exist. Lives and futures decided in rooms where their presence is not even acknowledged.
The stadium is not separate. It is only another stage for the same message the world delivers everywhere else:
If you are Deaf, your access is optional. Your safety is negotiable. Your dreams are conditional.
The Cost of Silence
Talent erased. Potential champions vanish before the stopwatch even starts. These are not “missed opportunities.” They are deliberate deletions of human brilliance. We don’t just lose medals. We erase entire futures.
Trust broken. Sport sells itself as “universal” then forces millions to beg, borrow, and crowdfund for what others receive without question. That isn’t equality. That is betrayal wrapped in sponsorship logos.
Futures stolen. Deaf children learn, faster than anyone else, that their dreams come with a price tag. Not because they lack ability, but because the system never intended to invest in them. Before they even grow, the ceiling is lowered above their heads.
Injustice normalised. Every time exclusion in sport is excused, we grant permission for it elsewhere. If we accept it on the track, we accept it in classrooms. If we accept it in stadiums, we accept it in hospitals. If we accept it in tournaments, we accept it in courtrooms. Step by step, exclusion becomes ordinary. Acceptable. Invisible.
This is not about medals. This is about imagination itself. About whether millions of Deaf people are permitted to dream at scale — or whether the world intends to keep shrinking their horizons until they vanish altogether.
The Hypocrisy
We call sport the most inclusive language of humanity. We parade it as the place where the world comes together. We tell Deaf children it belongs to them too.
But when Deaf athletes are absent from the biggest stages, it isn’t inclusion. It is theatre. It is marketing. It is a lie wrapped in fireworks and sponsorship logos.
We plaster “diversity” slogans across stadium walls while Deaf athletes sell raffle tickets just to afford a uniform. We wave rainbow flags and hashtags about equality while Deaf athletes are forced to crowdfund online for the right to compete.
We spend billions branding sport as “universal” while building systems that whisper: don’t be Deaf if you want to belong.
And the hypocrisy is not subtle. It is damning.
Economic hypocrisy. Sport earns billions in TV rights and sponsorships yet Deaf athletes get nothing. Entire national budgets bypass them, as if their existence doesn’t generate value.
Moral hypocrisy. Nations preach fairness abroad, while denying equality to their own citizens at home. Diversity is exported as a PR tool while exclusion is normalised behind closed doors.
Cultural hypocrisy. We idolise “heroes” who break barriers, while quietly ensuring Deaf athletes are the ones forced to carry barriers that should never exist.
Historical hypocrisy. The Deaflympics has thrived for a century, proving excellence is there, waiting. And yet it is still dismissed as niche, unworthy, invisible.
This is not universality. This is conditional belonging reserved only for those who fit the system’s boxes, or can buy their way in.
And until we are ready to face that hypocrisy, every banner of “diversity” hung in a stadium is not a promise.
It is a confession. It is an admission of guilt.
The Challenge
To governments: You engineered this architecture of exclusion. Stop hiding behind “oversight.” Every year you refuse to fund Deaf performance, you are not underfunding; you are actively stripping Deaf citizens of equality. You can change this tomorrow. The fact you don’t is not incompetence. It is intent.
To sponsors: Your brands drape themselves in rainbows and slogans about equality, but if you only invest where the cameras point, you are not inclusive; you are exploitative. If your logo can pay for Olympic billboards, it can pay for Deaf athletes’ uniforms. Anything less is profiteering off exclusion.
To broadcasters: Your silence is violence. By blacking out the Deaflympics, you are not neutral; you are an accomplice to erasure. Every untelevised race, every uncaptioned stream, every absent signed commentary says one thing: these athletes are not worth being seen. You decide history in real time, and you are writing Deaf people out of it.
To federations: Stop selling the lie of universality. A system built on sound was never universal. Every year you refuse to rewrite the rules, you prove exclusion is not an accident but a policy. You could adopt Deaf-led standards tomorrow. The fact you haven’t is the evidence.
Say It Clearly
The Deaflympics is not a side show. It is not charity. It is not optional.
It is a century-old global Games, older than the Paralympics, recognised by the IOC, built by Deaf athletes who refused to disappear.
And it proves what the world won’t admit: Deaf athletes are not missing. They have been erased.
Erased by governments who fund everything but them.
Erased by sponsors who profit from slogans while abandoning substance.
Erased by broadcasters who cut away and call invisibility “neutrality.”
Erased by federations who preach universality while writing exclusion into their rules.
This is not absence. This is extraction. This is not neglect. This is choice. This is not silence. This is violence by omission.
Until those governments, sponsors, broadcasters, and federations confront that truth, the message to every Deaf child is unchanged:
Your dream is conditional. Your belonging is negotiable. Your equality is optional.
And the world is fine with that.
Unless we tear this system down and rebuild it, the next Deaf child staring at the TV, believing the lie of universality, will discover the same brutal truth:
