The Deaf Legal Dilemma

This book investigates the legal rights and systemic challenges faced by the deaf community under equality and anti-discrimination law.

Despite legal frameworks that claim to guarantee equal treatment, deaf people continue to face entrenched inequalities, what the author calls the Deaf Legal Exclusion. This book introduces the Deaf Legal Dilemma - the mismatch between legal protections and lived realities - and exposes how the law categorises deaf people solely as disabled, overlooking their status as a distinct cultural and linguistic group.

Drawing on doctrinal and socio-legal analysis of the Equality Act 2010, the European Court of Human Rights, and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the book critiques how equality law relies on narrow definitions of fairness. It explores the precepts of equality: formal, substantive, and transformative, and assesses their ability to reflect deaf people’s experiences.

In response, the author sets out a series of Deaf Equality Concepts that reimagine what equality could mean if deaf people’s language, culture, and collective identity were taken seriously. From deaf schools to sign language recognition, the book shows how deaf communities are pushing for structural change and cultural recognition – not just token adjustments – revealing the Deaf Legal Illusion at the heart of the system.

This is a call to action for lawmakers, policymakers, legal professionals, educators, and allies: to confront the Deaf Legal Illusion, rethink the framing of equality, and build a future where deaf people are recognised not simply as individuals needing accommodations, but as language minorities demanding equality on their own terms.