A Deaf-Led View from the Interpreting Front Lines

Let’s get one thing straight: as a British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter, I operate in that magical sweet spot where Deaf and hearing worlds are meant to shake hands politely and get on with the business of mutual understanding. That’s the theory, anyway.

In practice, it’s more like refereeing a game where only one team got the rulebook — and the other’s been told they should be grateful the match is even happening.

Policy documents love to imagine access as a plug-and-play affair. Need inclusion? Just add interpreter. Sorted.

Except… it’s not.

From the inside of interpreting practice, what Deaf people deal with daily doesn’t look like poor communication. It looks like systems working exactly as they were designed to: for other people. This is not a revelation. Deaf communities have been saying it — in multiple sign languages — for decades. The issue isn’t lack of awareness. It’s lack of responsibility.

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Barriers Aren’t Discovered — They’re Designed

Let’s call a spade a spade (or in this case, a barrier a blueprint). Most “communication difficulties” are not divine accidents. They are the perfectly predictable result of a hearing-centric design brief.

Public services assume everyone has a voice and loves using it on the phone. Workplaces still hold spoken meetings that matter, then scribble the real decisions down later — if you’re lucky. Hospitals like their information rapid-fire and verbal. And emergencies? Hope you’ve got good lungs.

These aren’t innocent defaults. They’re design decisions — just not Deaf ones. So when things go wrong, it’s not because communication failed. It’s because the system succeeded at doing what it was built to do: centre hearing people.

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Deaf People Aren’t “Struggling” — They’re Strategising

There’s this persistent, pity-tinged narrative that Deaf people are bravely soldiering on through the minefield of inaccessibility. It’s sentimental nonsense.

In reality, Deaf people: navigate sound-saturated spaces with visual precision, code-switch like international diplomats, negotiate access (again) with yet another “we’ve never done this before” professional and spot an impending access failure three miles off and brace accordingly.

This is not passive resilience. It’s skill. But let’s not mistake competence for consent. Just because someone’s good at navigating barriers doesn’t mean those barriers should exist.

Working around exclusion isn’t the same as being included.

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Interpreters Are Not The Access Department

Now here’s a popular delusion: once an interpreter enters the room, access has been achieved! The accessibility fairy has landed, waving her magic BSL wand.

Not quite.

Interpreting is a service, not a spell. We facilitate communication — we don’t transform systems. You can have a stellar interpreter in a broken environment, and guess what? It’s still broken.

We are not: service designers, access coordinators, PR cover for dodgy planning or the final word on whether access is “good enough”. And yet, we’re often expected to be all these things. Why? Because it’s convenient. Because if the interpreter’s there, someone else can stop thinking about inclusion.

That’s not ethical practice. That’s delegation disguised as diversity.

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The Expanding Job Description No One Talks About

Interpreters routinely mop up after poor access planning, silently propping up systems that should’ve fallen over hours ago. We make the impossible look vaguely functional — and that illusion is dangerous. Because if it looks like access, no one fixes the system. Meanwhile, we’re juggling ethics like hot potatoes, trying not to drop the whole flaming lot.

Let’s be clear: professionalism isn’t silent suffering.

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An Interpreter Isn’t a Silver Bullet

Here’s a reality check: if a Deaf person is:

Then access has not happened. Even with an interpreter present.

We don’t control the room. We just work in it. And when we’re seen as the access solution rather than one part of it, the actual systemic rot gets ignored.

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Tech Isn’t Magic (Unless the Trick Is Making Barriers Invisible)

Ah, technology. The shiny toy waved about at conferences to prove how far we’ve come.

And yet… Auto-captions regularly say things like “duck the potatoes”, platforms are picked for price, not interpreter support and “Accessible apps” require you to pre-register, pre-load, and probably pre-pray

Tech isn’t the problem. Institutional laziness is. Without commitment, software just relocates the hassle — straight into the hands of the Deaf user.

Download your own inclusion. Terms and conditions apply.

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The Emotional Tax of Always Having to Ask

One of the quietest, most grinding barriers? The need to constantly ask.

This is not “self-advocacy”. It’s unpaid project management, emotional labour edition. It shapes who shows up, how long they stay, and what they’re willing to engage with.

When access depends on stamina, the system isn’t inclusive. It’s selective — based on energy levels.

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Shift the Burden. Properly.

Deaf people already know what the barriers are. Interpreters witness them daily. The surprise party is long over. We’ve all seen the guest list. If an organisation thinks access is “done” because a freelancer showed up with a lanyard and a bottle of mineral water, it’s missing the point.

Access isn’t an extra. It’s evidence of whose presence was assumed in the planning. Until Deaf participation is expected, not exceptional, we’ll keep repackaging exclusion as “an unfortunate hiccup.”

It’s not a hiccup. It’s the blueprint.