There were two scheduled Gender Neutral ‘Meet n Greets’ held during the USA Dance National Championships, March 17-19, in St. Louis, Missouri: one on Saturday and the second on Sunday. During the Saturday meeting, we had about 8-10 people show up; during the Sunday meeting, no one came. However, the Saturday meeting was very successful, and I think that people were overall appreciative of the effort put forth to meet and discuss issues.
Throughout the meeting, a video was played showing different gender-neutral duos dancing in various styles of dance.
The main issues discussed were:
- Everyone was very appreciative of the Gender-Neutral Dressing Rooms. They felt it showed commitment to the individuals and active support as opposed to “just words.”
- They were appreciative that during the workshops, the leaders were making a real effort to say ‘Lead and Follow’ as opposed to ‘Ladies and Gentlemen’ or ‘Guys’.
- They were appreciative that the Emcees did not use the word ‘Couple’ when inviting people onto the dance floor, but rather stated, “Will all competitors dancing Bronze come onto the dance floor” or “Will all Athletes….” or “Will number 128 come onto the dance floor.”
There were two issues that dancers felt could/should be remedied:
- Membership: Do away with the honorifics when signing up for a USA Dance membership. There does not seem to be any reason to ask anyone if they are a Ms., Miss, Mrs., Mr., or anything else at this time. Since there are so many options that people use, it would be easier not to have them included. Instead, one could ask if they are a Leader, a Follower, or Both. – We have discussed this with the USA Dance Membership Director and she has agreed to remove the honorifics from the membership form. This issue has been resolved by removing the honorifics box on the membership form.
- O2CM & Ballroom Express: Make it easier to change one’s name without getting an entirely new registration and losing the record of results and points. For example, if an individual originally signed up with their birth or married name but then went on to change their name, because they no longer were using that name or because of a divorce, currently it is almost impossible to change the name without registering anew and losing all the past data. – We have spoken to both Daniel Dilly, owner of O2CM, and Daniel Boman, owner of Ballroom Express — the two systems we use for registration and scrutineering. Both agreed that it should be easier to change one’s name and will be working to make that happen. In the meantime, they suggested that if someone were having a problem, the individual email them with their name changes and they would take care of the issue.
Daniel Dilly’s email: dancingmagician@gmail.com
Daniel Boman’s email: dboman@ballroomcompexpress.com
