[Callers] Introduction (and gender stuff)

Howdy, For those of you who know me (hi Alan!), I'm sure it's no surprise that I'm ignoring the standard advice to lurk on a list for a while, so I figured I should introduce myself: I'm a mid-40s cisgendered heterosexual white male, deaf with a cochlear implant (hearing-impaired my whole life). I've been contra dancing about a quarter-century, folk/square dancing a bit longer. These days I mostly think of myself as a contra dancer; square dancing is not much fun with my current level of hearing, and IFD (international folk dancing) is TOCOTOX [1] for this post. [1] Too COmplicated TO eXplain I lost my job in October and am taking something of a sabbatical. One thing I'm doing during this time is starting to write and call contra dances, which is how I landed here. I'm also starting to investigate calling squares -- talking ought to be easier than listening. ;-) Although I'm not genderqueer, I do what I call "performance genderfuck", playing with people's (and society's) expectations for "appropriate gender behavior". That includes gender-swapping at dances (often wearing a skirt); I can't remember when I started, but at least two decades ago. I also sometimes wear skirts at science fiction conventions. If you hunt down my other writing, you'll see a fair amount of "zie/zir" (gender-neutral pronouns), and outside discussion of gender, I rarely reveal my gender online. Now I'll tie this back somewhat to the current discussion: On Wed, Jan 02, 2013, Greg McKenzie wrote: Actually, although I agree that the "sexual tension" is a large part of why I enjoy contra, I have driven an hour [2] to go to a gender-free contra where I had no expectation of dancing with a bi/heterosexual person of the opposite gender. And I'm going to the Queer Contra Dance Camp in April [3], mostly because I want to meet a man I've known online for a decade -- but of course I expect to have a lot of fun otherwise. [2] I find that for me an hour of driving is about as exhausting as 2-3 hours for most people -- I rarely go anywhere more than a half-hour away [3] http://www.lcfd.org/sf/DanceCamp/wcamp.html I really don't get "gender choice is not an option". As I said in another post, I agree that alternative gender terms are probably not going to gain widespread acceptance outside the gender-free dance community. But I do think it's a good idea for the dance community and the caller community to come to agreement about the "best" terms for gender-free calling. As this quote illustrates, I think I'm not particularly an outlier: On Wed, Jan 02, 2013, tavi merrill wrote: However, I'll note that as with science fiction fandom, we are almost certainly a lot less inclusive than we like to think (on several axes). -- Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6 http://rule6.info/ <*> <*> <*> "I used to have a .sig but I found it impossible to please everyone..." --SFJ