At the very end of July, I was invited to Univeristy College London to take part in a panel discussion for Deaf Unity‘s summer school 2026 cohort! I sat alongside Kirsty, Ray, and Fatima, which was a dream come true as cheesy as that sounds.

Each of us were invited to talk about our experiences growing up in school, to sixth form, and then transitioning to university and beyond. I spoke about growing up hearing, and losing my hearing so slowly that almost nobody noticed it, and the impact of being undiagnosed on the support I was able to receive.

There was a wide range of experiences across the panel. Other panelists were born Deaf, or born into Deaf families, or were diagnosed quite young, so had access to support earlier in their career journeys. But that came with their own problems when facing inaccessibility and having to advocate for themselves.

I wasn’t born DeafBlind, and my hearing loss wasn’t formally diagnosed until after university, but all the signs were there. For example, the reason I changed my name to Max, rather than any other name, was because I couldn’t hear my birth name across a room, but Max was nice and loud. Turns out, hearing people don’t have that criteria 😂

The diagnosis isn’t what makes me Deaf, I was struggling long before I had my hearing tested. And this gave me a much different journey to others on the panel who were born Deaf, or diagnosed before university.

Huge thanks to Deaf Unity for inviting me, I’m always proud to be a role model!