When I first started contra dancing a few months ago, I happened to be at the same time in the process of questioning my gender. During the pandemic I spent a lot of time alone (as did we all) and…
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I am a non-binary dancer who dances both roles. Especially since the pandemic started, I have mainly been attending dances that use gender-free calling (whether positional or larks/robins). Recently, I traveled to attend an ECD event where they called dances…
I am a woman in my mid-twenties who found contra dancing this year and quickly fell in love. Language played a part in that. After our first dance, a friend and I talked about how cool it was that the…
Being small, dyslexic, and a dancer of many years, I feel quite awkward dancing the traditional role of male partner. I like “the man” to be the leader, so that I can carouse and play and horse around without having…
“The things one takes seriously are one’s weaknesses”, Charles Ludlam, Manifesto. Becoming Angela For over 70 years I have mostly been called Jim (or Jimmy originally); at least when people were being polite. Jim is a fairly common name. One…
I’m genderfluid, and our kid knows that gender can change and that some people are neither gender, or both. He himself is usually both. It’s going to crush my heart a little if I have to explain to him that…
I started dancing in a community that uses gender-neutral or positional calling. I’ve heard of some quippy one-liners that have been lost to this kind of calling, and some of them are pretty funny, but I don’t really have any…
I’ve been dancing both roles for almost as long as I’ve been contra dancing. There were often more women than men, so if I wanted to dance, I would ask another woman to dance with me. I loved getting to…
Many years ago the mother of a friend of ours suggested to her daughter that she go with us to a dance. The daughter responded “Aw mom, it’s so hetero.” It seemed funny to us then (and still does), but…
Only a few years ago I thought, gendered role terms, what the big deal? It is just like putting on a costume for a play or a silly hat for a tea party! It has nothing to do with who…