Chella Man | |
|---|---|
 Chella Man in 2019 | |
| Born | November 26, 1998 [1] Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, United States |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 2017–present |
| Website | www |
Chella Man (born November 26, 1998) [2] is an American actor, model, artist, YouTuber, and LGBTQ activist. He is known for sharing his experiences as a transgender, deaf, Asian, and Jewish person of color. Man rose to wider prominence in 2019 for portraying mute superhero Jericho in the second season of the DC Universe series Titans . [3]
Chella Man was born November 26, 1998, and is of Chinese and Jewish descent. [4] He was raised in a small town in a conservative Central Pennsylvania community, where he "did not consider [himself] beautiful". [4] Man was assigned female at birth and experienced gender dysphoria during childhood.
Man began to lose his hearing at four years old. By age 13, he was profoundly deaf, and the next year he received his first cochlear implant. At 16 he had a second implant placed in his other ear. [5]
In 2017, after experiencing gender dysphoria throughout his childhood, Man began transitioning using testosterone. [6] His use of masculinizing hormone therapy, [7] along with top surgery, helped with his identity, self-esteem, and body image. [8]
As of 2019, [update] Man is a student at The New School in Manhattan where he studies virtual reality programming. [4] [9]
In March 2017, he created his YouTube channel where he posted videos about his personal experiences with gender dysphoria, his identity, his love life, and American Sign Language translation videos to popular songs. [8] [10] Man stated in an interview with Teen Vogue , "There is an extreme lack of representation for young, Deaf, queer, Jewish, Asian, transgender artists...So, I decided to be my own representation." [4] Man also posts videos that attempt to mobilize young voters and discuss the political effects of the Trump administration, whom he did not support. [4] Man began doing so after president Donald Trump visited his high school during his presidential campaign. [11]
In May 2018, Man presented his TedX Talk entitled Becoming Him in which he talks about his transition journey and gender issues for LGBTQ youth and people with disabilities. [12]
Man signed to IMG as their first Deaf Jewish-Asian model in September 2018. [3] [4] [9] He has modeled for magazines including The Advocate , Bad Hombre, Time Out , Dazed , Gay Times and Mission, [13] and for brands including Calvin Klein, Gap, and American Eagle. [14] [15] [16] [17] [18]
In March 2019, it was announced that Man would make his acting debut as Jericho, a mute crime fighter, for the DC Universe's digital series Titans in its second season. [3] [19] [10] Man stated that he connected to the character, who uses sign language to communicate. He discusses the importance of disabled actors playing disabled characters to support proper representation, stating, "Casting disabled actors/actresses for disabled roles will aid to authentically represent and deconstruct stereotypes built around our identities". [3] [2] Man has discussed and worked alongside fellow disabilities activist Judith Heumann, and queer activist Jillian Mercado. [20] [21]
In March 2021, Man appeared on Tamron Hall , [22] discussing his transition that went viral in 2017. [23]
In June 2021, Man is a recently published author to Penguin Random House; his book, Continuum was the newest addition to the Pocket Change Collective, [24] a series focused on creating a space to discuss gender, sexuality, activism and intersectionality within the literary world.
In October 2021, Man became one of the first out trans men to work with a major beauty brand, as a member of the team of young influencers Yves Saint Laurent assembled to promote their Nu Collection, aimed at a Gen Z audience. [25] [26]
Man paints, designs tattoos, and has interest in fashion design. [4] [27] Man described how he finds inspiration as "pulled from anything I stumble upon that I find aesthetically pleasing. This could be a Picasso in the MoMA or a polka-dotted hat on the NY subway." [28]
Featured on his YouTube channel, Man's art publication is a 3-minute long visual performance, The Beauty of Being Deaf, promoting a jewelry collection that transforms hearing aids into ear jewelry. Man stated he created this jewelry collection as a way to introduce Deaf people into the fashion industry, as well as removing the stigma for wearing hearing aids and cochlear implants. He states, "Yet the appearance of hearing aids and cochlear implants have always created a disconnect. The pieces never felt like me, and I had no control over their designs. I always found myself brainstorming ways to reclaim the machinery that had become a part of me." [29] [30]
In March 2023, he released a short film The Device That Turned Me Into A Cyborg Was Born The Same Year I Was, "explor[ing] his complex relationship with the cochlear implant, and navigating identity between the deaf and hearing worlds". [31]
Man communicates in English and American Sign Language and most closely identifies with the bicultural identity for deaf people. [32]
He was previously in a relationship with MaryV Benoit, an artist and photographer. [33]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Titans | Jericho | 4 episodes |
| 2021 | Trans in Trumpland | Producer | |
| 2021 | The Beauty of Being Deaf [41] [29] | Director, producer, editor | |
A cochlear implant (CI) is a surgically implanted neuroprosthesis that provides a person who has moderate-to-profound sensorineural hearing loss with sound perception. With the help of therapy, cochlear implants may allow for improved speech understanding in both quiet and noisy environments. A CI bypasses acoustic hearing by direct electrical stimulation of the auditory nerve. Through everyday listening and auditory training, cochlear implants allow both children and adults to learn to interpret those signals as speech and sound.
Deaf culture is the set of social beliefs, behaviors, art, literary traditions, history, values, and shared institutions of communities that are influenced by deafness and which use sign languages as the main means of communication. When used as a cultural label especially within the culture, the word deaf is often written with a capital D and referred to as "big D Deaf" in speech and sign. When used as a label for the audiological condition, it is written with a lower case d. Carl G. Croneberg coined the term "Deaf Culture" and he was the first to discuss analogies between Deaf and hearing cultures in his appendices C/D of the 1965 Dictionary of American Sign Language.
Oralism is the education of deaf students through oral language by using lip reading, speech, and mimicking the mouth shapes and breathing patterns of speech. Oralism came into popular use in the United States around the late 1860s. In 1867, the Clarke School for the Deaf in Northampton, Massachusetts, was the first school to start teaching in this manner. Oralism and its contrast, manualism, manifest differently in deaf education and are a source of controversy for involved communities. Oralism should not be confused with Listening and Spoken Language, a technique for teaching deaf children that emphasizes the child's perception of auditory signals from hearing aids or cochlear implants.
Audism as described by deaf activists is a form of discrimination directed against deaf people, which may include those diagnosed as deaf from birth, or otherwise. Tom L. Humphries coined the term in his doctoral dissertation in 1975, but it did not start to catch on until Harlan Lane used it in his writing. Humphries originally applied audism to individual attitudes and practices; whereas Lane broadened the term to include oppression of deaf people.
Graeme Milbourne Clark is an Australian Professor of Otolaryngology at the University of Melbourne. Worked in ENT surgery, electronics and speech science contributed towards the development of the multiple-channel cochlear implant. His invention was later marketed by Cochlear Limited.
Sound and Fury is a documentary film released in 2000 about two American families with young deaf children and their conflict over whether or not to give their children cochlear implants, surgically implanted devices that may improve their ability to hear but may threaten their Deaf identity.
LGBT representations in hip hop music have existed since the birth of the genre even while enduring blatant discrimination. Due to its adjacency to disco, the earliest days of hip hop had a close relation to LGBT subcultures, and multiple LGBT DJs have played a role in popularizing hip hop. Despite this early involvement, hip hop has long been portrayed as one of the least LGBT-friendly genres of music, with a significant body of the genre containing homophobic views and anti-gay lyrics, with mainstream artists such as Eminem and Tyler, the Creator having used homophobia in their lyrics. Attitudes towards homosexuality in hip hop culture have historically been negative, with slang that uses homosexuality as a punchline such as "sus", "no homo", and "pause" being heard in hip hop lyrics from some of the industry's biggest artists. Since the early 2000s there has been a flourishing community of LGBTQ+ hip hop artists, activists, and performers breaking barriers in the mainstream music industry.
Prelingual deafness refers to deafness that occurs before learning speech or language. Speech and language typically begin to develop very early with infants saying their first words by age one. Therefore, prelingual deafness is considered to occur before the age of one, where a baby is either born deaf or loses hearing before the age of one. This hearing loss may occur for a variety of reasons and impacts cognitive, social, and language development.
Henryk Skarzynski is a Polish doctor otolaryngologist, audiologist and phoniatrist, creator and director of Warsaw Institute of Physiology and Pathology of Hearing and World Hearing Center in Kajetany.
Language acquisition is a natural process in which infants and children develop proficiency in the first language or languages that they are exposed to. The process of language acquisition is varied among deaf children. Deaf children born to deaf parents are typically exposed to a sign language at birth and their language acquisition follows a typical developmental timeline. However, at least 90% of deaf children are born to hearing parents who use a spoken language at home. Hearing loss prevents many deaf children from hearing spoken language to the degree necessary for language acquisition. For many deaf children, language acquisition is delayed until the time that they are exposed to a sign language or until they begin using amplification devices such as hearing aids or cochlear implants. Deaf children who experience delayed language acquisition, sometimes called language deprivation, are at risk for lower language and cognitive outcomes. However, profoundly deaf children who receive cochlear implants and auditory habilitation early in life often achieve expressive and receptive language skills within the norms of their hearing peers; age at implantation is strongly and positively correlated with speech recognition ability. Early access to language through signed language or technology have both been shown to prepare children who are deaf to achieve fluency in literacy skills.
Deafness has varying definitions in cultural and medical contexts. In medical contexts, the meaning of deafness is hearing loss that precludes a person from understanding spoken language, an audiological condition. In this context it is written with a lower case d. It later came to be used in a cultural context to refer to those who primarily communicate through sign language regardless of hearing ability, often capitalized as Deaf and referred to as "big D Deaf" in speech and sign. The two definitions overlap but are not identical, as hearing loss includes cases that are not severe enough to impact spoken language comprehension, while cultural Deafness includes hearing people who use sign language, such as children of deaf adults.
Thomas J. Balkany is an American ear surgeon, otolaryngologist and neurotologist specializing in cochlear implantation. He is the Hotchkiss Endowment Distinguished Professor and Chairman Emeritus in the Department of Otolaryngology and Professor of Neurological Surgery and Pediatrics at the University of Miami's Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine. Additionally, he is a fellow of the American Academy of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery, the American College of Surgeons and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The Deaf rights movement encompasses a series of social movements within the disability rights and cultural diversity movements that encourages deaf and hard of hearing to push society to adopt a position of equal respect for them. Acknowledging that those who were Deaf or hard of hearing had rights to obtain the same things as those hearing lead this movement. Establishing an educational system to teach those with Deafness was one of the first accomplishments of this movement. Sign language, as well as cochlear implants, has also had an extensive impact on the Deaf community. These have all been aspects that have paved the way for those with Deafness, which began with the Deaf Rights movement.
Hunter Schafer is an American actress, model, director, and LGBT rights activist. She made her acting debut as transgender high school student Jules Vaughn in the HBO teen drama television series Euphoria (2019–present), which earned her nominations for a Shorty Award, an MTV Movie & TV Award, and a Dorian Award. In 2023, she portrayed Tigris Snow in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.
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The Language Equality and Acquisition for Deaf Kids (LEAD-K) campaign is a grassroots organization. Its mission is to work towards kindergarten readiness for deaf and hard-of-hearing children by promoting access to both American Sign Language (ASL) and English. LEAD-K defines kindergarten readiness as perceptive and expressive proficiency in language by the age of five. Deaf and hard-of-hearing children are at high risk of being cut off from language, language deprivation, which can have far-reaching consequences in many areas of development. There are a variety of methods to expose Deaf and hard-of-hearing children to language, including hearing aids, cochlear implants, sign language, and speech and language interventions such as auditory/verbal therapy and Listening and Spoken Language therapy. The LEAD-K initiative was established in response to perceived high rates of delayed language acquisition or language deprivation displayed among that demographic, leading to low proficiency in English skills later in life.
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