In the beggining he said after a while she noticed or something like that so it means she had partial hearing loss.
I figured that she noticed him visually, a shadow was cast or she saw movement. Anon also said that she heard her mom “for the first time” when she got the implant.
Taking all this into account, while the greentext seems to have avoided the first label of homosexuality, the verity of the story nevertheless has to be put into question.