Love Island star Tasha Ghouri has shut down "stereotypical and ableist" comments that were made about the way she acts as a deaf woman.
After coming fourth on the dating series, she was the first ever deaf contestant on the show and has a cochlear implant fitted to aid her with her hearing.
Tasha was born deaf as a result of the "small hairs in the cochlear were missing and damaged" and her doctors still don't know why.
After using British Sign Language when she was young, she became less reliant on it after getting the implant and learning to lip read.
Opening up about ableist comments in a new YouTube video, Tasha said that there is pressure for her to "act a certain way because I wear a cochlear implant”.
“I’m also going to be working on pushing the deaf community even more. I think coming out [of Love Island] it really did show me there is a lot of work that still needs to be done,” Tasha said.
“Going into the show and really wanting to show people that just because you have a superpower, it doesn’t define you – it’s just part of something special that you have.
“And coming out of the show and seeing some of the comments that people were saying about me, that I should act a certain way because I wear a cochlear implant because I’m deaf is so stereotypical.”
Explaining that there isn't a "certain way" a deaf person should act, she added: "It’s just a part of who you are. I’m human like everyone else and yeah…it was…. quite a few comments I saw. The thing is with me, you can have an opinion – a negative one – but never bring someone’s superpower into it, because that’s ableism and there was a lot of that.
“A lot of that and it goes to show we’ve still got a long way to go and I still use my voice for the greater good.”
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