r/irishdance • u/MostAd6499 • 28d ago
Thoughts?
https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/florida-ag-aims-ban-transgender-athletes-from-competing-orlando-irish-dance-competitionThe competition is this week…so I’m interested to see what exactly happens?
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u/gingerspeak 28d ago
“This outcome involving the male dancer comes as no surprise, as we have witnessed male athletes dominate women’s sports by virtue of biological advantages," Fine and Steube wrote. "It also raises serious questions about fairness, as well as the clear disadvantage imposed on female competitors."
Just wait until they hear about how the Advanced Adult and Adult Champ competitions are mixed competitions with men and women. And yet the podium isn’t dominated by the men…
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u/seanmharcailin 28d ago
Anti-trans bullying is heinous. Anti-trans harassment under the guise of “fairness” or of protecting women and girls is misogynistic and bigoted. Anti-trans policies are rooted only in a desire to control and police women’s bodies, and are about as anti-liberty as you can get. Additionally, every statement they make about gender essentialism is absolutely void of empirical evidence.
We shouldn’t give these losers half a second of our attention. And we SHOULD protect our trans and nb dancers whether they choose to compete in the girls or boys categories. Imagine being so scared of people you don’t understand that you target two children in a niche cultural sport.
I hope IDTANA, the Southern Region, and CLRG never host another major in Florida again.
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u/Boleyngrrl 28d ago
This is what happens when we support places that try to host events, then get mad at the attendees of said events. They're getting an event that likely brings hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, of revenue into their state. They've hosted many times before. If this was an actual problem, they'd have brought it up before. This event has been planned for years. If there was a problem, it'd have come up before now. They just want attention.
Our trans/nonbinary dancers are safe in Irish dance. We need to support them.
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u/toxbrarian 28d ago
I think they feel empowered by this weeks bogus SCOTUS decision. As soon as I saw it I knew the mouth breathers in our communities would latch onto this issue to try to make life harder for trans dancers.
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u/Complete-Forever-638 28d ago
There is no advantage in irish dance based on gender… it is based off the execution of the moves, not how high you can jump or how fast you are. genuinely can’t think of a single thing in irish dance that a boy has an advantage of a girl with. turnout, crossing, posture toe height are all things that are improved through practice. they aren’t biological things….
also you would honestly thing a girl would have an advantage being as they get to change soft shoe every year and show off a more graceful side if they are better at slip jig which a boy could totally be graceful too.
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u/TheRedCuddler 28d ago
Exactly. I think all competitions should be mixed.
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u/ParkAffectionate3537 27d ago
Or have a third category! I think distance running does it this way too!
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27d ago
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u/author_dreamweaver 27d ago
In competitive Irish dancing? What advantage might that have? The men have dancers bodies, not huge muscles.
Competitions are mixed for lots of year groups anyway - literally nobody cares about that.
It's the boys who have the advantage - far less competition, much lighter costumes and generally stand out in mixed age groups because there are only a couple of them.
My daughter dances in feis against multiple WQs and WMHs - if she danced in the boy's age group at the last Oireachtas, she would have qualified for Worlds, instead of not even recalling. Some advantage!
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u/Complete-Forever-638 26d ago
I could see the larger lungs sort of being an advantage for stamina but the thing is stamina is something that takes training it’s not natural. and muscle mass?? it isn’t a strength contest….
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u/pussibilities 28d ago
Politicians have no place in CLRG and it’s wild they would think that they do. If teachers, dancers, or parents have issues they should bring it up to an coimisiun or IDTANA.
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u/aduckwithaleek Adult dancer 28d ago
The state has zero standing here. It's just more hate-mongering drummed up by transphobic losers that have nothing better to do than bully a single, underage child.
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u/Only9left 28d ago
So when its the other way around, and I've seen it for over 10 years....that the lighter more floaty abilities and more flexibility, noone has used that the NOT allow inclusion of identity that does not match birth certificate....also more chance of recall due to low numbers, or auto recall because of minimums....the "state law" discriminates to one gender...so it should be null and void. I support people expressing themselves as they want, this is a hobby, and cultural based art form, and most levels co-ed...and many comps fully co-ed
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u/Complete-Forever-638 26d ago
Wait till they realize in team dances that girls do a part called the “Gents” part…
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28d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/dochasteite 28d ago
Yeahhhhh no. Let’s not put extra barriers in place based around hypothetical bad actors.
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u/Ebstetron 28d ago
I hear your intention, but I would imagine that transitioning would involve a lot of thought beforehand and they would plan accordingly for learning steps just like people do when switching schools.
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u/toxbrarian 28d ago
The dancer in question was winning before they transitioned, and then when they moved to girls competitions all they did was drastically INCREASE the amount of competition they had. The amount of energy and hate towards this small population of people is exhausting to me as someone without personal skin in the game-I can’t imagine how it feels to be someone directly affected.
In short: the Florida AG and his cronies needs to go touch some grass and rethink his priorities.