Try Scotland. Look around, and you might find people who don't want men dancing rapper either. Or anything else.
My dad remembered a joke from when he was young about the Close Brethren only ever committing adultery lying down, in case God thought they were dancing.
I was kind of disappointed with myself for even noticing
I don't think there's anything reprehensible about noticing. Trans people have in common with cis people that they can't choose exactly how to appear. It is often far more problematic for them, but that's society's fault rather than the fault of whoever happens to glance at them.
Mind you, I'm only identifying this person as trans based on appearance and one of Mabel was mis-identified as trans or (more frequently) male a number of times over the weekend. So I may be blathering up the wrong tree entirely.
The whole habit of assigning gender by appearance is something that we're so used to doing I find it difficult to train myself out of it. Indeed, I doubt I'll ever manage - although I may eventually get good enough at not voicing my assumptions that it won't matter much.
I think I'm reasonable at not voicing my assumptions. It's less of a problem if you look at someone and think "not sure" than it is when you look at someone and get it so wrong that you don't even realise there might be an issue (I think that's only happened to me once, and someone fortunately addressed the person by their name before I managed to do any foot enmouthination).
I guess I've always assumed that someone would rather be identified as their gender of choice rather than as trans, but maybe that's wrong. I do know at least a couple of people who deliberately describe themselves as "transwomen" rather than "women". I guess it's likely to differ from person to person anyway, so the best bet is always going to be hold tight until you hear how someone describes themself :)
Thinking about that idea in this particular context is proving a little interesting to me. In general, I'd say that I'd sooner dance with a women's rapper team than a mixed team. This is mostly because you'll end up with better dancing if you have people of a uniform(ish) height, weight, strength and style of dancing.
Obviously, we don't: we have massive height variance, and so do some of the men's teams. I do find the strength thing a problem dancing in a mixed set. Ditto the style, though I imagine that's more learned (men do usually dance in a more pushy, aggressive way and it unbalances things).
So saying "women only" doesn't remove these problems, but it does limit them a bit. And I think I'd feel more uncomfortable dancing with a team that set a height/weight limit on new members!
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Have a kudo with that madeira, why don't you?
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My dad remembered a joke from when he was young about the Close Brethren only ever committing adultery lying down, in case God thought they were dancing.
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Is there still a lot of that about? I thought being puritanical had quite gone out of fashion.
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I don't think there's anything reprehensible about noticing. Trans people have in common with cis people that they can't choose exactly how to appear. It is often far more problematic for them, but that's society's fault rather than the fault of whoever happens to glance at them.
Mind you, I'm only identifying this person as trans based on appearance and one of Mabel was mis-identified as trans or (more frequently) male a number of times over the weekend. So I may be blathering up the wrong tree entirely.
The whole habit of assigning gender by appearance is something that we're so used to doing I find it difficult to train myself out of it. Indeed, I doubt I'll ever manage - although I may eventually get good enough at not voicing my assumptions that it won't matter much.
Reply
I guess I've always assumed that someone would rather be identified as their gender of choice rather than as trans, but maybe that's wrong. I do know at least a couple of people who deliberately describe themselves as "transwomen" rather than "women". I guess it's likely to differ from person to person anyway, so the best bet is always going to be hold tight until you hear how someone describes themself :)
Reply
(The comment has been removed)
Obviously, we don't: we have massive height variance, and so do some of the men's teams. I do find the strength thing a problem dancing in a mixed set. Ditto the style, though I imagine that's more learned (men do usually dance in a more pushy, aggressive way and it unbalances things).
So saying "women only" doesn't remove these problems, but it does limit them a bit. And I think I'd feel more uncomfortable dancing with a team that set a height/weight limit on new members!
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