When Does Inclusion Begin?

6 days ago

15 min read

Reflecting on Ayesha Gavin’s session about cultural competency, bias and inclusive professional practice

You are in a workplace where most of the staff are hearing. You are talking to another hearing person before the Deaf person you have been booked to work with arrives.

Do you sign while you speak?

Perhaps you decide there is no need because the Deaf person is not yet in the room. When they enter but remain on the other side of the room, do your hands come up then? What happens when they stand nearby but are not directly involved in your conversation?

At what exact point does the communication become something they should be able to access?

During her extended conference presentation, Cultural Competency, Ayesha Gavin used this scenario to ask interpreters and translators to examine the decisions that can become so familiar that we no longer notice ourselves making them.

Cultural competency is often discussed as knowledge about other people. Ayesha’s session showed why it also requires us to examine ourselves: our identities, assumptions, habits, relationships with power and the point at which we decide inclusion matters.

Several cultures can exist within one person

Ayesha introduced herself through the different identities, languages and experiences that have shaped her understanding of culture.

She is Deaf and grew up within a hearing family where Urdu, Punjabi and English were used. She is Asian, a wheelchair user and bisexual, and was brought up Muslim. During primary school, secondary school and university, she was usually the only Deaf person and the only Asian person within predominantly white hearing environments.

She received no sign language or learning support during her mainstream education. It was only at university that she first met Deaf people her own age who signed, although she did not yet have the language to become fully involved with them.

Later, while working in a bank in Dublin, she met Deaf colleagues who used Irish Sign Language and began learning from them. After returning to Lancashire, her involvement in Deaf and disability arts introduced her to BSL and a wider community of sign language users.

Ayesha is now a registered Deaf sign language translator, teacher and trainer. Through Heart of BSL, she teaches from Level 1 to Level 6 and provides Deaf awareness, BSL awareness and cultural training to organisations including police services, airports, councils and schools.

Her introduction demonstrated one of the central ideas within the session. Culture is not a single label that completely explains someone.

A person may belong to several cultural, linguistic, religious, professional and social groups. Those parts of identity may meet in ways that affect how the person experiences services, communication and other people’s assumptions.

Knowing that someone is Deaf does not tell us everything about their language, family, education, ethnicity, faith, disability, sexuality or relationship with the Deaf community.

Cultural competency requires us to remain curious about the individual rather than deciding that one part of their identity gives us the whole answer.

What is cultural competency?

Ayesha described culture as including beliefs, values, customs and behaviours. Culture is learned through socialisation and may change over time, across generations and according to location.

Cultural competency is the ability to communicate and work effectively and respectfully with people from different cultural backgrounds. It involves recognising and valuing difference while also developing awareness of our own culture and worldview.

This does not mean memorising a list of facts about every group.

Knowing that a particular behaviour is common within one community may provide useful context, but it should not become a new stereotype applied to every individual from that background.

Cultural competency involves knowledge, but it also requires reflection, listening, adaptation and a willingness to recognise when our first interpretation of someone’s behaviour may be incomplete.

Ayesha presented cultural competency as a continuum rather than something a person either has or does not have. She discussed stages including cultural disruptiveness, cultural incapacity, cultural blindness, cultural pre-competency, and cultural competency and proficiency.

This continuum gives us a way to consider not only openly discriminatory behaviour but also systems that appear neutral or well intentioned while continuing to disadvantage particular groups.

When the dominant culture takes over

Ayesha used cultural disruptiveness to describe situations where a dominant group takes over, erases or attempts to control another culture.

From a Deaf perspective, this may appear when Deafness is viewed only as a medical problem that hearing people should fix. Deaf people may be patronised, have decisions made for them or be expected to adapt entirely to hearing ways of communicating and living.

The hearing world remains the standard. Sign language, Deaf culture and Deaf ways of being are treated as problems, limitations or temporary alternatives.

This can damage trust because the people claiming to help may also be reducing the Deaf person’s independence and authority over their own life.

Interpreters and translators need to be alert to the possibility that access work can unintentionally become part of this pattern. We may be asked to help a Deaf person fit into a hearing system without anyone questioning why that system has made no effort to change.

Our presence should not be used as evidence that the organisation has become inclusive when every important decision continues to be made according to hearing expectations.

Good intentions are not enough

The next stage, cultural incapacity, describes systems or organisations that may not intend to cause harm but lack the knowledge or ability to support people from different cultures properly.

Ayesha gave an example involving healthcare staff who assumed that a family did not care about a child’s diagnosis because they asked very few questions.

The staff interpreted silence according to their own cultural expectations. A concerned parent, in their view, should ask questions, challenge information and seek further detail.

Within the family’s culture, questioning a doctor may have been considered disrespectful. Their behaviour did not show a lack of concern. It reflected a different understanding of authority and respect.

Without cultural awareness, the healthcare professional may form an unfair judgement about the family.

An interpreter may notice this difference, but cultural mediation requires care. We should not claim that we know exactly what someone’s behaviour means simply because we know their ethnic or religious background.

We may, however, recognise that the professional’s conclusion is based on an assumption and support space for the family to explain their own perspective.

Cultural competency does not give the interpreter permission to speak for people. It can help us notice when another participant is interpreting their behaviour through one narrow cultural lens.

When reading is mistaken for language access

Ayesha connected cultural incapacity with the assumption that a Deaf person who can read must be fluent in English.

For many Deaf people, written English may be a second, third or fourth language. BSL and English have different grammatical structures, and literacy levels may have been affected by unequal access to education and language during childhood.

Offering written notes is therefore not automatically an accessible alternative to providing a qualified interpreter or sign language translation.

A hearing professional may feel that they have solved the communication problem because the Deaf person nodded while reading a document. The person may have understood some of it, guessed from the context or felt unable to say that the information was unclear.

Cultural incapacity is visible here not through deliberate exclusion but through a lack of understanding about language, education and Deaf experience.

The organisation has provided something, but it has not checked whether that provision gives the person meaningful access.

Voiceover and the status of a Deaf person’s language

Ayesha asked interpreters to think carefully about voiceover.

An interpreter may find a Deaf person’s signing difficult to understand. Their language may be regional, use unfamiliar vocabulary or reflect a life and cultural experience the interpreter does not share.

The interpreter may feel pressure to continue smiling, nodding and producing spoken English rather than revealing that clarification is needed.

This creates a serious risk. The interpreter may produce a version that sounds fluent and confident but does not accurately represent what the Deaf person said.

Ayesha argued that this can downgrade the Deaf person’s first language and reinforce the belief that spoken language is superior. The hearing participants hear a clear English voice and may assume it fully represents the Deaf person, even though the interpreter was uncertain.

The Deaf person is not present to be represented by the interpreter. They are representing themselves and relying on the interpreter to relay their contribution accurately.

Asking for clarification does not weaken their authority. Pretending to understand can.

The interpreter can pause and explain that they need to check one part of the message. This may feel uncomfortable, but it protects the Deaf person’s meaning and recognises BSL as a language that deserves the same care as spoken English.

When treating everyone the same creates exclusion

Ayesha described cultural blindness as the assumption that cultural differences do not matter and that everybody can be treated in the same way.

This may sound fair. In practice, identical treatment can continue discrimination because people do not enter services with identical experiences, languages or access needs.

Ayesha gave the example of public buildings providing the same number of toilets for men and women without considering how long different groups may need to use them. The design appears equal, but the regular queues outside women’s toilets show that the experience is not equal.

From a Deaf perspective, cultural blindness appears when speech is consistently valued above sign language or when services are designed around hearing people without Deaf communities being consulted.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, widespread mask use removed access to lipreading, while public information was often unavailable in sign language. Policies were created as though everyone received information in the same way.

The exclusion may not have been the intended aim, but the consequences were real.

A culturally blind system often says, “We treat everybody the same.” A culturally competent system asks whether the same process actually gives everybody an equal opportunity to participate.

Access to ordinary information matters too

One of Ayesha’s most striking examples came from a flight she took with an interpreter.

She expected the safety information to be interpreted, including instructions about exits, emergency lighting and oxygen masks. The interpreter then continued signing.

Ayesha received the names of the pilot and cabin crew, the journey time, the expected arrival, details of food and information about products available to buy.

She was surprised to discover that hearing passengers routinely received all this information. Much of it was not essential, but that was precisely the point.

Deaf access is often reduced to information someone else has decided is important enough. Safety instructions, medical information and legal decisions may be interpreted, while everyday conversation, announcements and incidental information remain inaccessible.

Over time, missing ordinary information contributes to cultural and informational deprivation. Hearing people build knowledge not only through formal education but through announcements, overheard conversations, radio, television and the background information surrounding daily life.

An interpreter accompanying a Deaf person should not automatically filter the message down to the parts they personally consider important.

The Deaf person has the right to decide what is relevant to them.

Ayesha’s flight example asks us to consider how often interpreters and services unintentionally ration access, not because time or conditions make it necessary, but because they have become used to Deaf people receiving less.

Tokenism is not the same as change

Ayesha described cultural pre-competency as a transitional stage. The organisation or individual has recognised that improvement is needed and begins taking action, but the changes may remain limited or superficial.

A company might hold a diversity lunch where staff share food from different cultures. The event may be enjoyable and may give people an opportunity to learn something about one another.

However, Ayesha encouraged participants to look beyond the visible celebration.

Are employees from different backgrounds promoted equally? Is their work valued and paid fairly? Do they hold decision-making roles? Are discriminatory practices challenged?

Displaying cultural food, flags or images can create the appearance of diversity without changing the structures that determine who holds power.

The same risk applies to Deaf inclusion.

An organisation may feature a BSL video on its website, invite one Deaf speaker or appoint a Deaf person to an advisory group. Those actions may be useful, but they do not automatically mean the wider organisation has become culturally competent.

Is the Deaf person’s advice acted upon? Are Deaf professionals paid for their knowledge? Can they influence policy before decisions are made? Is the signed information maintained and updated?

Tokenism invites someone into the space while leaving the existing system largely unchanged.

Competency means adapting, not managing other cultures

At the later end of the continuum, Ayesha discussed cultural competency and proficiency.

This involves behaviours, attitudes, policies and structures that allow effective cross-cultural working. It does not mean controlling or managing other cultures. It means learning, adapting and valuing different ways of communicating and working.

From a Deaf perspective, proficiency begins with recognising that one size does not fit all.

Ayesha shared an experience from an audiology department. She was waiting because her hearing aids had broken, yet a member of staff came into the waiting area and called her name aloud.

When Ayesha did not respond, the staff member continued speaking to her and later said they had not realised she was Deaf.

The setting itself should have made different communication needs predictable. Yet the routine remained built around hearing.

Cultural competency would not require an elaborate new system. Staff could check the person’s access needs, approach them directly, use a visual display or agree another way of gaining their attention.

The barrier continued because the existing routine had not been questioned.

This is the practical difference between awareness and competency. Awareness recognises that Deaf people may not hear their name. Competency changes what staff actually do.

When do interpreters choose to sign?

Ayesha’s sequence of workplace scenarios brought cultural competency directly into interpreters’ everyday behaviour.

In a predominantly hearing workplace, two hearing people may speak without signing while the Deaf colleague is elsewhere. As the Deaf person moves closer, the hearing participants begin deciding whether the conversation should become visible.

When the Deaf person enters the room, do they sign?
What about when the person stands nearby but is not directly involved?
Do they wait until the Deaf person attempts to join the conversation?

Ayesha then reversed the situation. Imagine entering a room where everybody else is Deaf and signing. Would we expect them to stop signing and begin speaking because a hearing person had arrived?

The reversal exposes the unequal expectation.

Hearing communication is often allowed to remain the default until direct Deaf participation forces an adjustment. Signing is treated as something done for the Deaf person rather than a shared language that can remain present within the environment.

There may be practical reasons why someone does not sign every conversation. A hearing interpreter may not be able to speak and sign with equal accuracy at the same time, and a private conversation does not automatically become public because a Deaf person enters the room.

The important issue is the decision-making underneath the behaviour.

Do we feel embarrassed signing when no Deaf person is watching? Do we treat BSL as a language used only for work? Do we expect Deaf people to ask before communication becomes accessible?

The question is not simply when our hands move. It is what that moment reveals about which language we see as normal.

Bias does not automatically make someone a bad person

Ayesha was direct that everyone has bias.

Bias can sometimes support quick decisions about possible risk. However, it can also be shaped by stereotypes, dominant cultural messages and limited experience.

Recognising a bias does not automatically mean someone is cruel or deliberately discriminatory. It means they are human and have identified something that now requires reflection.

Guilt can sometimes stop that reflection. A person becomes focused on proving that they are not biased rather than examining the effect of what they said or did.

Ayesha offered several questions that may reveal assumptions.

Have you ever told a Deaf person that their speech is very good? What expectation sits behind that compliment? Would you also tell them that they sign well?

Have you asked someone from a minoritised ethnic background where they are “really” from after they have already answered the question?

Would you ask a wheelchair user why they use a wheelchair while accepting somebody else’s choice to drive or cycle without demanding an explanation?

These comments may be presented as curiosity or praise. The person receiving them may have heard the same question repeatedly and understand the assumption underneath it.

Cultural competency asks us to consider impact as well as intention.

Deaf culture is not one experience

An interpreter may believe that years of working with Deaf people have made them fully culturally competent.

Ayesha encouraged participants to look more closely at whose experiences they actually know.

Do they attend Deaf events beyond professional bookings? Do they know Deaf children, young people, older people and professionals? Have they spent time with Deaf people from different ethnic, religious, regional, disabled or LGBTQ+ communities?

The Deaf community is not culturally uniform.

A Deaf Muslim may have experiences and priorities that differ from those of a white Deaf Christian. A Deaf wheelchair user may encounter access barriers that are not noticed by a non-disabled Deaf person.

An older Deaf person may use language shaped by a very different educational history from a young Deaf signer.

Cultural competency cannot be built through contact with one section of the community and then applied to everyone else.

This is also why Deaf people themselves continue developing cultural competency. Belonging to one minoritised community does not automatically remove bias towards another.

The work belongs to all of us.

Active listening requires time

Ayesha identified active listening as one of the practical ways cultural competency can improve.

Active listening is not simply nodding, back-channeling or waiting for a pause so that we can respond. It involves paying attention to the person’s language, facial expression, body and the meaning beneath the words or signs.

For sign language users, visual attention is central. Interrupting, taking over or rushing someone while they are finding a way to express an idea may prevent the very information we need from emerging.

Interpreters often work under time pressure and may feel responsible for keeping the interaction moving. Cultural competency may require us to tolerate a little more silence and allow the person to organise their own message.

We can also adapt our communication style according to the individual rather than expecting everybody to meet one professional pattern.

This does not mean imitating someone or making assumptions based on their background. It means responding to what the person in front of us is showing and telling us.

What does this mean for translators?

Ayesha’s session was directly relevant to both interpreting and translation.

Translators need to consider whose culture and assumptions are embedded within the source material. A text may have been written as though all readers share the same family structure, religious background, literacy level or understanding of public services.

A direct BSL translation may reproduce those assumptions without making the information genuinely useful to the intended audience.

The translator should ask who the audience is and whether the commissioning organisation has involved people from that community in the design of the information.

One BSL version cannot automatically represent every Deaf audience. Age, regional language, ethnicity, migration history, disability and educational experience may all affect how information is understood.

Cultural competency also affects who is given authority within the translation process. Are Deaf translators involved from the beginning, or asked to appear in front of a camera after hearing staff have made every important decision?

Does the organisation listen when a translator explains that the source content itself is culturally inappropriate or inaccessible?

Translation should not become a visual sign of inclusion attached to a process that remains culturally blind.

What are we passing on?

The theme for The Together Conference 2026 was Pick It Up, Pass It On.

Ayesha connected cultural competency directly with that theme. Awareness, experiences and questions can all be passed on, but so can bias and cultural blindness.

Interpreters and translators learn from the behaviour of colleagues, tutors, organisations and commissioners. A developing professional may see experienced interpreters stop signing whenever the Deaf person looks away and conclude that this is normal.

They may watch colleagues praise a Deaf person’s speech but never recognise the value of their sign language. They may learn that difficult cultural questions should be avoided because raising them could make people uncomfortable.

We can pass on a different professional culture.

We can show that clarification protects the Deaf person’s language rather than weakening the interpreter. We can question assumptions without immediately attacking the person who made them. We can continue signing when it supports an inclusive environment and listen when people tell us that our good intentions have not produced an equal experience.

Cultural competency is not a certificate we complete or a point at which we know enough about everybody else.

It is an ongoing willingness to notice, reflect, ask and change.

New insights begin with examining the familiar

The theme for The Together Conference 2027 is New Insights, Shared Purpose.

Ayesha’s session showed that new insight can begin with a very ordinary moment: a conversation in a workplace, a name being called in a waiting room or a compliment that carries an assumption the speaker has never examined.

Perhaps you are researching cultural competency, intersectionality, language deprivation, bias or culturally responsive interpreting and translation.

You may have developed training, reviewed an organisational process or examined how several parts of identity affect someone’s access to services.

You might be a Deaf translator, interpreter, educator or community member with an experience that could help the profession recognise something it currently overlooks.

These contributions could support the programme for The Together Conference 2027.

The Call for Papers opens on Monday 5 October 2026. You do not need to decide whether your proposal belongs in the live or extended programme. Submit your idea and the review panel will consider where accepted contributions fit best.

Poster submissions will also be welcomed for emerging research, community projects, training resources, early findings and practice-based reflections.

A shared purpose does not require everyone to have the same culture or perspective.

It requires us to recognise difference without turning it into hierarchy, and to remain willing to change the systems and behaviours that tell some people they matter only when they directly ask to be included.

Using this article for unstructured CPD

You may wish to reflect on one or more of the following questions:

Which cultures and communities have shaped your own worldview?
How do your professional identity, language, ethnicity, disability, faith, sexuality, social background or family experiences affect how you interpret situations?
Where would you currently place yourself on Ayesha’s cultural competency continuum?
Have you seen good intentions produce an inaccessible or unequal outcome?
When have you interpreted someone’s behaviour according to your own cultural expectations?
How might a professional misunderstand a family who shows respect or concern differently from them?
Have you ever assumed that a Deaf person who can read has full access to written English?
How do you respond when you cannot fully understand a Deaf person’s signing during voiceover?
Have you ever filtered out information because you decided it was not important enough to interpret?
What does Ayesha’s flight example suggest about access to ordinary information?
When do you sign in predominantly hearing workplaces, and what influences that decision?
How would you feel if a room full of Deaf signers switched to speech because you entered?
Have you ever complimented a Deaf person’s speech in a way that might reveal an underlying expectation?
Whose Deaf experiences do you know well, and which parts of the community remain less familiar to you?
How can you listen more actively without taking over or rushing the person’s message?
Is an organisation you work with culturally competent, or does it rely mainly on visible but limited gestures of inclusion?
What could you change in your own interpreting or translation practice?
Is there an experience, project or area of research that could become a proposal or poster for The Together Conference 2027?