At 15, Cotton started learning New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) and “the floodgates opened”. “I often describe trying to communicate orally as like wading through jelly; it's a lot of extra effort and brain power. Learning sign language was incredibly freeing,” she explains.
It also enabled her to connect with the wider Deaf community: “I cannot put the significance of the love, support and friendship the Deaf community has provided into words that would do it justice.”
Yet navigating being Deaf in a hearing world is just one of the challenges Cotton has had to overcome.
Her lifelong Christian faith failed her when she came out as bisexual; she was insulted, excluded and shamed by clergy, teachers, mentors and peers.
