I hope that anyone who chooses to learn is equally as willing to learn something about the beauty and richness of the Deaf community too, and that they find themselves with a healthy amount of respect for those individuals to whom the language has historically been denied: those of us who NEED it.

This is a great point. These kind of concerns are often misrepresented as "deaf people think they can say who learns ASL and who doesnt." (Although that just might be something I see on Reddit and it's skewing my perception of its real-life frequency )

Literally in another thread there is a kid right now asking how to sign "send nudes" and he/she isn't responding well to someone's "cultural (mis)appropriation" arguments. This type of explanation might go over better . ( not that there was anything wrong with the cultural appropriation argument at all . It just didn't seem to be getting through to him/her

** also this is not a call to bombard that thread at all . Feel free to remove this post if it seems that way