[Callers] Role term survey responses

[Aahz via Callers]

On Mon, Feb 13, 2017, Neal Schlein via Callers wrote:
>
> I do not want to replace gent and lady as terms, based on my own experience.

What I'd say is that what I want doesn't matter much.

> Some context: I've been dancing for between 29 and 37 years, depending on
> how you count--my parents met at a square dance and I grew up dancing.  

Somewhat similarly, I'm a second-generation dancer, although my parents
were more into folk dancing (they met on a hike).

> I am a happily married man and prefer to dance with women as partners and
> corners.  I don't mind dancing with men, but that's not what I go to dances
> for; if I wanted to get close to a bunch of sweaty guys, I'd play
> football.  If we're honest, we can admit that the vast majority of our
> general dancers (both new and old) are probably similar.  So why not let
> the dance reflect that?  That's more likely to win friends than taking a
> wonderful dance with character and making it into  "gender free diet
> crystal contra."

Normally I make a point of avoiding any discussion of my gender and
sexual preferences, but because it's relevant here: I'm cisgender male
and heterosexual.

Like Neal, my personal preference is to have women as partners
(regardless of whether I'm dancing boy or girl -- and particularly in
contra I'll happily gender-swap near-constantly).  But I want my contra
community to be inclusive, and because of the kyriarchical society we
live in, I am happy to lose some of my preference to encourage greater
participation from groups who would not be comfortable with hetero- and
other kinds of normativity.

[Not going to bother discussing Neal's points about gender styling; it's
something that I don't care about.]
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