What Jeremy describes is what I've seen as both an attendee of the IAGSDC convention in recent years, and as a visitor to a handful of IAGSDC clubs in CA, NV, NM, OR, and WA. IAGSDC even offers suggestions to non-LGBT dancers attending IAGSDC conventions on how to "square up" as a boy, girl, or either:
<http://www.iagsdchistory.org/historywiki/index.php?title=The_Guide_to_IAGSDC_Convention_Chapter_6>
The Rosetown Ramblers (an IAGSDC club based in Portland, OR) have a page on commonly-used "fluff" (including the "boy!"/"girl!" thing mentioned previously) at <http://www.iagsdchistory.org/historywiki/images/3/33/How_To_Fluff.pdf>.
Outside of IAGSDC world, at least in my neck of the world (California's central valley, about 100 miles east of San Jose), women dancing as "boys" is tolerated if not exactly encouraged; women who do so may wear a necktie to indicate the role that they're dancing, and some women will carry a "boy" badge or a "boy/girl" badge that can be flipped so that the role they're dancing is right-side-up while the role they're not dancing is upside-down with them.
--Nick
Hi Jeremy,
At MIT’s Tech Squares, “boys” and “girls” are used, sometimes with “ladies” and “gents” thrown in. However, many dancers dance either role. If you are dancing a role that does not visibly match your gender, you typically call out (not too loudly) “boy” or “girl”, when the caller gives a call that is specific to a gender. As you get more accomplished as a dancer, you seem to not need to call that out as much - if the dance is moving, the flow of the dance should usually indicate who is supposed to move.
Seth
On Oct 4, 2017, at 1:54 PM, Jeremy Child via Callers <callers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Hi_______________________________________________
I have a question for anyone who calls or dances Gender Free MWSD (by Gender Free I mean where no assumptions are made about what role a dancer will take based on their gender).
I've been told that GF MWSD dances still use the terms "Boys" and "Girls", but please correct me if I'm wrong.
MWSD is unique amongst folk dancing in that dancers need to know the role being danced by others in the square (if I'm a "boy" and the call is "boys trade", I need to know who the other boy in my line / wave is in order to do the call).
So to my question: How do the dancers identify which roles the other people are dancing? Traditionally this is done with dancers taking the opposite role to their gender wearing bands, but that is surely inappropriate if the dance is GF.
Also, if any MWSD clubs are using truly non-gendered terms, please let me know.
Thanks in Advance
Jeremy
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