[Callers] Another vote for "jets" and "rubies"

[Jeff Kaufman via Callers]

On Fri, Jan 27, 2017 at 1:44 PM, Ron Blechner <contraron at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> If that's the case, one would assume there are also plenty of traditional
> venue dancers who don't care either way. To that effect, genderfree roles
> are not as scary as some have claimed.

Sure, I think that's probably true.  But I think the most likely
possibility is "most people don't care that much" not "several
thousand dancers want it".

>
> Dances using gents/ladies up and down the East coast are dwindling in
> attendance. I'm hearing that from nearly every organizer I speak with.

I'm not disputing this (though I also don't have firsthand evidence of
it) I just don't think gender free terms are *causing* the attendance
change, as opposed to both attendance changes and gender free naming
being caused by an underlying factor.

> I don't understand discounting new dances at all. If there was a demand for
> a genderfree dance, and it was filled, how is that not proof of growth of
> overall genderfree dancing?

The dances that have been gender free for decades and the dances that
have recently one gender free are pretty different.  The older dances
have a community, culture, and core that formed several decades ago to
be LGBT/queer spaces, while the newer gender free dances are mostly
mainstream dances in a modern mainstream that is much more queer
friendly.

Jeff