It's always great to read when someone stumbles on that [gents/women, boys/ladies, etc] just by reading square dance material! That was certainly one of Kris Jensen's pet peeves for a VERY long time. Everytime I find myself using some weird combination of naming roles, I (mentally) slap my head. It was brought up in a couple of the caller's schools I went to way back when.
For a long time, I used to do an icebreaker on first nights and open houses by having all the dancers paired up in the "ladies/gents" roll in a large circle. Then with lively music on, and as they are circling, I'd say, "All the GENETIC women" jump up to the middle and back.
ALWAYS, there was ONE guy that would wander up amongst the women, everyone would look at them in surprise, and we'd all get a chuckle out of it. Then I'd explain that gay square dancing uses the terms Gents/Ladies etc, but that those are just dance role names and have no bearing on who you are in real life.
THAT is all over now. Our square dance club has so many dancer now of undertermined gender, I dare not take the risk of offending by doing that old ice-breaker!
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It's always great to read when someone stumbles on that [gents/women, boys/ladies, etc] just by reading square dance material! That was certainly one of Kris Jensen's pet peeves for a VERY long time. Everytime I find myself using some weird combination of naming roles, I (mentally) slap my head. It was brought up in a couple of the caller's schools I went to way back when.
For a long time, I used to do an icebreaker on first nights and open houses by having all the dancers paired up in the "ladies/gents" roll in a large circle. Then with lively music on, and as they are circling, I'd say, "All the GENETIC women" jump up to the middle and back.
ALWAYS, there was ONE guy that would wander up amongst the women, everyone would look at them in surprise, and we'd all get a chuckle out of it. Then I'd explain that gay square dancing uses the terms Gents/Ladies etc, but that those are just dance role names and have no bearing on who you are in real life.
THAT is all over now. Our square dance club has so many dancer now of undertermined gender, I dare not take the risk of offending by doing that old ice-breaker!