Gender Obsessed

This weekend I went to the LCFD (Lavender Country & Folk Dancers) Spring Dance Camp in Woodstock. They hold two a year on the East Coast, and starting this year, they are also sponsoring a camp on the West Coast. Tony and Beth Parkes were our callers (calling both contras and squares), Graham Christian led English Country Dancing, and music was provided by Dark Carnival.

I love these weekends. They are a chance to get away, catch up with old friends, meet new friends, and do something that we all enjoy: dancing. We do "gender-free" dancing, which, as I've explained before, is that anyone dances whichever role--lead (traditional man's) or follow (traditional woman's)--they wish to dance. During a conversation with Beth, she told me that at "gendered" dances she uses the terms "gents" and "ladies," because these are roles we take on for dancing. While that makes sense to me, and to many of us, in LCFD we stay away from gendered language. We use armbands to distinguish the two roles. Those wishing leading wear an armband (which may be tied around your wrist, tied to your name button, around your neck, as a headband...well, you get the picture). Those following do not have an armband. So callers use the terms "bands" and "bares" (for "bare arm") when calling a dance for us.

In spite of the fact that we call this dancing "gender free," there have been times when we--only half jokingly--say that we are in fact gender obsessed! At times this comes from the fact that there are some women who absolutely will not dance the bare arm role and some men who absolutely will not dance the armband role. At other times it because there some men who refuse to dance with women as partners and some women who refuse to dance with men as partners. There have been dances when people have become quite strident about these issues, although that has lessened a great deal over the years.

A great variety of people come to our camps. We've had transvestites attending for a number of years. In fact, one who used to come regularly would come with his wife. Both were welcomed into the community. One of the issues we've had over the past few years, however, is the lack of younger folks coming to camp, and to our local dances. That seems to be changing at the local dances. My "local" dance in New York City has been attracting a lot of young adults--many of them college students. So when I arrived at camp this weekend, I was glad to see a small group of young folks who had obviously come together. I quickly learned that many of them dance in the Boston area.

Equally as quickly, it became apparent that some of these young dancers were transgendered. Of course, they were made to feel welcome, and they seemed to feel very comfortable. Some of them were experienced dancers, and some of them new to contra dancing. But as the weekend progressed, I found myself somewhat troubled by the presence of these transgendered young folks. I really had to think about it. Part of it was that it wasn't always clear if one of them was identifying as male or female. It was awkward in some cases trying to determine which pronoun to use. Our way of handling that when one of them became the topic of conversation was to say, "the young person who... (is wearing the red tee shirt, has the blond hair, etc.). Or, if we knew names, we'd use names exclusively and no pronouns. A couple of them had names that were clearly male, but body shapes were not quite. In those cases, we did use masculine pronouns. Some were quite clearly identifying themselves as female, and then we'd use feminine pronouns.

As I thought about it some more, I realized that part of my issue was that I found one of the young men (and I will think of him as such, since that is how he wishes to self-identify, at least within our dance community) very attractive. Now, it was pretty clear that this person was at least born as a female, and he may or may not be transitioning from female to male. I danced with him as a partner once and encountered him as a neighbor in contra lines several times, and he came across as physically male. Not to mention the fact that he seemed strong enough to pick me up and toss me a good distance, and I'm not a small person. So here I was admiring this young man (and admiring someone you find attractive does NOT mean you are going to get involved in a relationship that is anything other than friends or dance partners, thank you), and evidently it messed with my head, so to speak. Who are we attracted to and why? And what does this say about our sexuality?

Please note, I am not saying I am attracted to women. But here was this young person...Did I mention he has beautiful eyes?...and the situation just threw me for a loop. So I learned that transgendered folk make me more uncomfortable than I believed. But that is MY issue, not theirs, and by the end of the weekend, I was pretty much able to relate to them as I do with any other dancers at camp. We talked. We danced. We flirted (the gender free dance community is the only place where you can flirt with pretty much anyone and not get into trouble). Hopefully, none of them were really aware of my discomfort, and I hope I made them feel welcome. Maybe someday, if they keep coming to camp, we might have a conversation about it.

There is always something more to learn about being a human being and being in relationship with other human beings. We are all part of God's wonderful creation.

Peace,
Jeffri