Gender Neutral Dance Terms

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Zach Soberman. I’m calling from Burlington, Vermont.

Hi, Zach. Welcome to the show. What’s up?

So a couple weeks ago, there was a caller who was talking about using the word Jip as a move in Morris and wondering how to sort of transition away from using a term that has racial connotations.

You’re talking about Morris dancing, right?

Yes, Morris dancing.

I’ve had some experience with something a little similar. I’m a swing dance instructor, West Coast Swing specifically, and we started to transition away from gendered terminology when talking about our partners. Instead of using the male does this, the female does this, or the man and the woman, we’re starting to use leader and follower instead. And it’s just something that’s kind of been pushed from the new students who have come in, as well as some of the newer instructors. And the transition happened really, really smoothly.

And so you didn’t run into any conflicts in your classes where people were confused by the new gender-neutral language?

No. If anything, it made things a lot clearer because oftentimes we’ll have partners dancing in their nontraditional roles. So we will have a female lead or a male follow. And so just specifying leads and follows makes it a lot easier for everyone to follow, for lack of a better term.

Interesting. And what were you saying before? What were the calls?

Usually it was man and woman. So the man’s going to do this or the woman can place her hand on his chest. Now it’s just, well, the follower can place their hand on the leader’s chest for this styling or something like that.

OK, so this is just instruction. It’s not I don’t know how that kind of dancing works. You’re not calling it out like in square dancing. It’s not like an ordered set of moves. It’s about you create the patterns on the fly, and it’s so with the instruction of these patterns.

Okay.

So there in Burlington, you didn’t get any resistance?

None whatsoever.

The community has been extremely supportive.

I also danced down in Boston, and it’s been a similar sort of thing.

Just because the community is a lot bigger, though, it’s been a little bit slower to get going.

But we’ve actually, we’re starting to get support with like the national governing body of swing.

And they’re starting to allow for non-traditional competitions as well.

And so what are people saying about this?

I think it’s overall really, really favorable.

There have been a couple of times where people aren’t entirely on board with it.

Because there’s such an attitude of support and discussion in the community that we’re all comfortable going to that person.

Or just talking to someone saying, hey, when you say this, it makes me feel uncomfortable because, well, I am a male follower.

And so dragging me away from my partner because two guys shouldn’t be dancing together, that’s not really something we’re okay with in the community.

So now that the community support developed, it’s become the norm.

So you’re saying at the national level, though, they still do gendered dancing mostly?

So primarily, yes.

Just within the past year or so, they switched the actual regulations that say how the competitions are supposed to go. They switched them from you must have a male lead female follow to you can dance whatever role you want.

And there’s a whole bunch of politics with that, but they’re just starting to switch.

But West Coast Wing is a smaller community than ballroom, and ballroom is taking a lot longer to catch up, if it ever will.

Do you know the term ambidantrist?

Yes, I identify as ambidantrist.

That means that you both lead and follow as the occasion requires, right?

Yep.

Interesting.

And you wear one high heel and one flat shoe?

No.

How does that work?

Usually it’s one or the other at a time, but I can say I can rock a good pair of heels.

Nice.

And so do you think that changing the language changes people’s attitudes?

I think it does.

At the very least, it’s allowed, it’s created an atmosphere of open discussion, whereby making sure that we’re using this inclusive language, it allows people to speak up without points of confusion, and it opens the dance to people who otherwise wouldn’t feel comfortable being a part of it.

When I started, one of my really close friends was transgender, and I told him to, well, why don’t you come to the ballroom? And they said, well, I don’t think there would be a place for me, because they wouldn’t know what role to fit in.

Well, now that we’re using the more open language, there’s a lot more opportunity for non-binary individuals to come and enjoy something that may have been previously inaccessible.

Perfect summary.

Yeah.

That’s great, Zach.

I’ve got to say that it sounds like you guys are moving the conversation along in the right direction.

Thank you.

Yeah, it’s been a long road, but it’s definitely been worth it.

We really appreciate you taking the time to tell us how it’s going there in Burlington, and we hope to hear from everyone else in the country about this, too.

Well, thank you for having me on.

Have a good one.

You too.

Take care now.

Thanks, Zach.

Bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Yeah, you know, this reminds me of inclusive language in liturgy now or on birth certificates or marriage certificates.

I mean, I think it makes a lot of sense.

You want to see yourself.

You want to see yourself reflected.

Yeah.

You want to know that if you were to walk in that door, that it’s open to you.

And the only way to do that is if things as simple as pronouns or gender are carefully considered, right?

Sometimes you don’t know what you’re walking into.

But if somebody says, oh, here’s the dances we’re going to do, and all it says is lead and follower, leader and follower, and it doesn’t say male and female, you’re like, okay, yeah, I’m cool with this.

You know, I’ve often heard people say, well, it doesn’t really matter. The language doesn’t really matter that much.

And I always say if the language doesn’t matter, then let’s say womankind rather than mankind.

If it doesn’t matter very much, her or she rather than…

Then we can change it.

Yeah.

If it doesn’t matter, let’s try it the other way and see if it matters to you.

If you want to read more about this, there’s a great discussion of the pros and cons on a website called Lindy Affair by a woman named Carrie Westbrook.

Just go there and look for a comparison of arguments surrounding general neutral language.

And she’s got a lot of pluses and minuses on this.

And it’s a really thoughtful consideration.

Cool.

And in the meantime, give us a call, 877-929-9673, or send your thoughts in email to words@waywordradio.org.