#Boys in Girls competitions

[coochiequeens]

Southern Regional Director PJ McCafferty urged the dancing instructors to “be proactive and speak to dancers (girls) and parents in your class who are aggrieved by these policies,” Policies that allow boys to compete against girl in a dance where strength makes a big difference.

Mary Margaret Olohan / @MaryMargOlohan / December 07, 2023

Pictured: The dancers shoes and socks are seen on stage during the opening day of the World Irish Dancing Championships at the Waterfront Hall on April 10, 2022, in Belfast, Northern Ireland. (Photo: Charles McQuillan/Getty Images)

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL: A teenage boy who identifies as a girl is heading to the Irish Dancing World Championships after placing first in the U14 2023 Southern Region Oireachtas competitions. Parents of girls competing in Irish dance are frustrated and outraged, saying that they cannot understand why a boy with physical advantages is allowed to dance against their daughters.

“Oh, my gosh. It’s going to make me cry,” said one mother, whose daughter danced in the same competition as the trans-identifying boy in the Dallas, Texas, event. “I never thought I was going to have to deal with this. And my heart breaks for my daughter and the other girls that are having to deal with this. They are too young to have to deal with topics that are going on in society, that are adult topics, that they don’t quite comprehend yet.”

“They just look at it as unfair,” she added emotionally. “And it’s really hard to explain to them what’s going on and why they have to accept it. That’s what society’s making them do. As a mom, I want to be an advocate for my daughter. But at the same time, I have to protect my family.”

The Daily Signal has chosen not to name or picture the boy who won the U14 dance competition since he is a minor. Dance results show that the child formerly competed as a boy and placed 11th in the world in the Coimisiún Le Rincí Gaelacha (CLRG) World Championships in April 2023.

The boy’s social media includes the preferred pronouns “she/her” and pictures of the child at Irish dancing competitions depict him wearing the typical dance attire for girls, including dresses, makeup, and wigs. Results show that the boy finished first out of 100 dancers in the early December girls’ U14 competition, making him both a world qualifier and a national qualifier.

He dances with the Inis Cairde School of Irish Dance, which did not respond to requests for comment, nor did his teacher. The boy’s mother did not respond to requests for comment via her purported social media accounts.

In a video reviewed by The Daily Signal of the boy winning the U14 girls competition on Sunday, girls in the background can be seen with jaws dropped, looking at one another when they realize that he has been declared the winner.

“My daughter was in absolute tears,” shared the mother whose daughter competed against the boy last weekend. Her daughter was unaware he was a boy until he received first place and word spread like wildfire throughout the competition, she said. “She was like, ‘This is so unfair.’ I totally agree.”

Message boards reviewed by The Daily Signal show that many within the Irish Dance community are up-in-arms about the event. Users purporting to be parents expressed outrage about a boy dancing in and winning a girls’ competition—then expressed more outrage when their posts were deleted by the Voy message board moderator (who also deleted a post by this journalist requesting parents reach out for this story).

A number of parents reached out to The Daily Signal to share their frustrations, requesting anonymity to protect their daughters’ privacy and dancing futures.

“Parents think it’s outrageous,” shared one dancer’s parent, who spoke anonymously to preserve family privacy. “They are absolutely outraged. It’s absolutely ridiculous, just like in any other sport, and we’re seeing it play out on the national stage in the congressional hearings this week.”

“The feeling is one of fundamental unfairness,” this parent added. “And then obviously the frustration and resentment that goes along with that.”

“It’s just not OK,” protested a mother whose daughter also danced at the Southern Region Oireachtas and is now heading to the World Championships. “It’s totally wrong. It’s unfair, especially in Irish dance. A lot of it is just about power and strength. Yes, there is the technique … but a lot of it also has to do with strength and power and the boys are stronger.”

Parents told The Daily Signal they do not understand when or how the leaders of the Irish dancing community made the decision to allow boys to compete as girls. But emails from the Southern Regional director shine some light on this process.

In an Oct. 30 email obtained by The Daily Signal, Southern Regional Director PJ McCafferty told Irish dance teachers that at the June 30, 2022, Annual Convention of the Irish Dance Teachers’ Association of North America (IDTANA), the members in attendance adopted an inclusivity statement.

That statement said that the IDTANA is committed to “a culture where every dancer, family, teacher, and volunteer feel safe, respected and valued through creating an environment that provides dancers, regardless of age, ability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, income, race or sexual orientation, opportunities to learn and grow as dancers and people.”

McCafferty also revealed in this Oct. 30 email that he convened a meeting of the Southern Region Executive Board and proposed a motion allowing trans-identifying dancers to compete as the gender they aligned with: “At the Southern Region Qualifying Oireachtas, dancers may compete in the competition appropriate for the gender they identify as in their everyday life, without regard for their gender at birth.”

“The motion passed in a secret ballot,” he shared.

Then, in a Nov. 21 post, McCafferty publicly addressed concerns about the boy dancing in the girls’ competitions, acknowledging that there is “a great deal of upset” about the matter but emphasizing that “entering and competing in the CLRG [Coimisiún Le Rincí Gaelacha] World Championship competition that corresponds to the gender identity of the dancer is an established CLRG precedent.”

“It has been done before,” said the regional director, who did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

In a statement to the Daily Signal, the Coimisiún Le Rincí Gaelacha, the governing body for global competitive Irish step dancing (recently under fire for “feis-fixing” allegations that teachers were bestowing sexual favors on judges in exchange for their pupils’ advancements), said merely: “CLRG is committed to creating a safe and inclusive environment for every child in our Irish dance community.”

“I am writing this post to remind everyone that we teach all the dancers,” McCafferty continued. “We advocate for every one of our dancers. We do our very best to be fair to everyone. This situation is not easy for anyone. Not everyone’s point of view or personal interests align. I am asking for your tolerance. You are expected to respect all the dancers.”

He urged the dancing instructors to “be proactive and speak to dancers and parents in your class who are aggrieved by these policies,” telling the teachers to “explain that we are required to adhere to CLRG and IDTANA policies,” according to a Nov. 20 email obtained by The Daily Signal.

Many of the female dancers’ parents expressed fears that the Irish dance community would label them as transphobic or hateful if they spoke up for their daughters—and they fear that their daughters will suffer if they speak out. But the parents also stressed that they merely want fairness for their young dancers, who they do not think should compete against a boy.

“My husband could lose his job,” said the mother of the girl who danced in the same competition as the boy. “I could lose my job. I’m afraid my child might be chastised or, you know, not allowed to compete in other Irish dancing. This is what she loves. This is her passion.”

Rowena Ryan is a former Irish dance instructor and adjudicator who taught for over 20 years and whose daughter formerly competed as a dancer. Ryan noted in a phone interview with The Daily Signal that there are many members of the LGBTQ community within the Irish dance world and that she “100%” supports them, “as do the majority of the teachers and adjudicators within Irish dance.”

But that doesn’t change the fact that boys have physical advantages over girls in Irish dance, she said: “There’s just no getting around the physical differences between men and women.”

“When you’re judging competitions between girls and boys, things that you look for are different in a male dancer compared to a female dancer,” she said. “So I just don’t think it’s fair to have the two competing against another because they are judged on different criteria.”

“You can identify as a giraffe if that’s what you want to do,” the former judge added. “I believe firmly in live and let live. It’s when someone else’s decisions are then affecting a lot of other people that you then have to sit back and decide what needs to happen. And I’m sorry, but girls need to compete against girls and boys need to compete against boys.”

Maggie McKneely, a young woman who competed in the adult competition at the Southern Region Oireachtas last weekend, also reflected on the situation in a phone interview with The Daily Signal.

“Most sports, men and women tend to do the same basic activity, just at very different skill levels, but Irish dance is highly gendered,” explained McKneely, who works as a legislative strategist for the conservative organization, Concerned Women for America. “The two sexes wear different shoes, they wear different clothes, they actually have completely different dance styles. They’re really not interchangeable in any way.”

“If a boy decides to compete as a girl, he has to learn how to dance like a girl and wear girls’ dance shoes,” she continued. “So I think it’s really ridiculous. It’s not fair to the kids. It’s certainly not fair to the girls who have to compete against the boy. And it totally undermines what makes Irish dance what it is, the highly gendered aspect of it is a defining feature.”

What is next for those who dissent from the Irish dancing world’s apparent embrasure of gender ideology? Parents who spoke with The Daily Signal hope that their voices will help bodies like the CLRG to recognize that only girls should compete against girls. Some of these parents are preparing to take a public stand if their daughters are forced to compete against a boy.

They feel, as McKneely wrote in a Thursday blog post, that “the powers that be within Irish dance are more interested in being politically correct than preserving both the dignity of Irish dance and its dancers.”

[airenaiy]

Yeah.. it was most definitely not a tie 🤡

[dancingthrghthemusic]

I’m SO tired of seeing ugly ass Homelander edits to the most boring rap/phonk and ton of filters/slomo.

Half of the Homelander hashtag on TikTok is filled with this dogshit and it pisses me off so much. Not just from an aesthetic point of view (which is an achievement itself, knowing how plain and hideous these videos are), but also from a story telling one. He’s not a “based sigma”. He is literally the most pathetic crybaby on the show with mommy issues. How do you misinterpret the character SO badly 😭 Season 4 literally ended with him crying on the floor, until a black woman, who openly calls out racists, saved his ass and became if not his equal, then his boss. I’m like 99% sure idiots who make this shit either don’t watch the show or skip like half of the scenes HL is in.

I do know that ugly and boring edits is a thing for the majority of the boys TikTok fans (since most of them are men), but I genuinely haven’t seen this amount of cringe alpha edits with any other character, except HL. They also attract the worst possibly imaginable kinds of “fans” on the show, who bullied women like Erin. And the thing is, these corny ass tiktoks overshadow really good and talented creators, who actually put effort into their HL edits and don’t see him as a Fortnite skin. We seriously need more coquette HL edits to scare them off + bully editors of the “sigma” HL tiktoks, so this atrocity would stop and the actual good edits would come on top

I hate m*n

[total-drama-brainrot]

What if Geoff wasn't the nice, chill surfer party dude who had no problems with anyone and was friends with everyone?

No, nobody can be that nice. No teenager can be that okay with every person in the camp. No, Geoff hid it. It was a common tactic he used to get people not constantly pissed at him before (it was just annoying). Pretending to be this dumb party dude fooled everyone into believing he was that because why would you ever question HIS motives? He's just a dumb party dude!

But pretending was so, so hard. You see, he had to pretend he liked these people.

Too hard.

And one day, he slipped up.

Interesting. So Geoff's friendly demeanour and sufer boy energy is all, what, a ruse he uses to portray himself as less of a threat in the competition?

It would be an effective game plan; Geoff makes it pretty far into the game in Island, and a lot of his survivability stems from his social strengths and the fact that he's not really seen as a threat in the competition - he's a lot like Owen in that regard, just less intense with his friendliness. You could have Geoff intentionally imitate a lot of Owen's mannerisms after he notices how generally liked (or at least tolerated) he is, and it'd explain their similarities quite nicely.

It does make me wonder what Geoff would be like underneath his act. Your ask implies that he's, if not entirely misanthropic, then a lot less easygoing and amicable as he's shown to be in canon. Someone easily annoyed by others, who perhaps doesn't really have the patience to deal with a lot of the shenannagins that happen on the show, even if he pretends he does... and even if his whole game plan revolves around maintaining that misconception.

That's not to say that he isn't the Geoff we all know and love from canon. He's still the same person, he's just... not as benign. At least not internally.

You could take inspiration for this Geoff from his portrayal in Action, or maybe even his vindicitiveness from World Tour (against Blaineley, just make that energy universal) to base a lot of his real character on; a Geoff who isn't exactly antagonistic, but has a mean streak and a tendancy to hold grudges. And, of course, he'd keep the same natural charisma canon Geoff has, even if his "himbo charm" is fake.

Then it's just a case of replacing his usual good-natured aloofness with cool apathy, or even a spiteful disrgard of others, and you've got yourself the perfect canvas for a wolf in sheep's clothing.

And he's also got his friendships with the Bass boys - Harold excluded, of course - which, considering Duncan's influence, would be a nice outlet for his less sociable tendencies. A way to let loose without having to expose himself as less good-natured than he lets on.

Bringing it back to Owen, and their shared similarities: Geoff could esaily attach himself to Owen post merge, similarly to how Heather attaches herself to Lindsay, as not only a social buffer (though Geoff doesn't really need one, unlike Heather) but as a sort of pawn in the competition. The "boy's alliance" would be the perfect time to have Geoff try to integrate Owen into his social circle, which is pretty much what happens in canon anyway.

Keeping Owen as close as possible is the most strategically sound move on Geoff's part. The closer he is to Owen, the easier it is to cherry pick what aspects of Owen's personality he's going to imitate. He's also got himself at least one secured vote (in theory, since Owen's known to be easily swayed).

The issue with this?

Geoff finds Owen almost unbearable to be around.

Which is ironic, given that he's conciously and intentionally trying to be as Owen-like as possible, but it's true. He can't understand how anyone can be as unconditionally and authentically cordial as Owen is, and it pisses him off. He has a hard enough time acting friendly and warm around people he doesn't like, but when it comes to doing the same with someone he actively despises?

It's enough to wear his already thin patience down until it snaps.

[crossbackpoke-check]

the deweys photos are from this video: https://youtu.be/5xTwJho44ao?si=bPw8MZZ327lCogVZ aren’t they just everything

kissing you and the minnesota wild official media team (with consent) full on the mouth, THANK YOU THIS VIDEO IS EVERYTHING 🥰🥰 i have seen pieces of it before i think (connor petting a shark 🥹) but the entire video start to finish is such a delight, 10/10 would recommend

[gender-dropout]

is it a coincidence that just days after watching all of the Saw movies I realized that I am most likely a trans man/transmasc instead of transneutral, and started looking into testosterone HRT? Was my spontaneous decision to watch all of the Saw movies actually an act of divine intervention? Did Saw have anything to do with this realization at all even? (100% yeah)

[cinematicnomad]

I googled We Keep the Dead Close a little and was intrigued! Can you tell me what you liked about it?

oh yey!! i'm always happy to rave about a book i've enjoyed, so i can totally share my thoughts with you :)

we keep the dead close: a murder at harvard and a half century of silence is less a standard true crime book, and more half memoir and half a chronicling of the author's meticulous research process. as an undergrad at harvard, becky cooper, heard repeated tellings of a near mythic campus legend: of a nameless female grad student who had an affair with a tenured archaeology professor in the '60s who murdered her in a ritualistic manner and got away with it thanks to the omnipotent powers-that-be at harvard and the case remained unsolved ever after.

the story stayed with cooper until she felt compelled to learn all that she could over the course of the next decade. to untangle the truth from the cautionary tales that were whispered in the hallowed hallways of harvard. the very beginning of this story starts with the uncovering of a name: jane britton, who was so much more than the victim she became in the final moments of her life. and then it unfurls from there: not just to the facts surrounding the murder, but also the intimate details that make up a life, both loved and lost, and the surrounding culture that could allow this silence to perpetuate for decades while recognizing the power structures that still thrive in today's world.

this book is an exhaustive record of cooper's research efforts—the archives she dug through, the events she snuck into, the websites she trawled, the doors she knocked on, the people who would and wouldn't talk to her, the jobs she accepted and turned down to help her make the time to tell this story—but also an examination of her own biases and motives. how we affect the stories that are told and how we tell them, and also the ways in which we, explicitly or not, try to force facts to fit into familiar narrative story beats. it's also concerned with the power structures in the world of academia, specifically at harvard, that so often protect powerful men at the expense of vulnerable women, no matter how talented and promising and innocent, all in the name of reputation and tradition.

potential suspects rise and fall away like waves crashing on a shore as cooper and those who loved jane try to make sense of the violence that ended her life so young, but this is not a book that is confined to the whodunit nature of most true crime tales. rather, cooper is more compelled to tell jane's story in a way that both honors jane and is honest about her.

if you like non-fiction, have ever enjoyed true crime, and have some time to devote yourself to a 400+ page book, i highly recommend we keep the dead close. the case was solved in 2018 while cooper was still writing the story (though perhaps some answers bring forth only more questions), but i recommend against googling the case beforehand and instead letting the experience wash over you.

[sunshineandrosesnoraincamemyway]

reeeeeeaaaaaly hoping I don't get pied in the face tomorrow.

[castelled-away]

I am rewatching bridgerton s3 again before part 2 drops and am hoping beyond hoping that Hyacinth will turn out to be bit of a tomboy when she gets her story

[pynkhues]

Do you see patterns in tropes you’re attracted to with your ships? Like it seems like you might like a good girl x bad boy dynamic and I wondered if you’d agree? What do you think attracts you to those tropes/dynamics? 🩷

Oh! That's so funny, anon, I would not describe myself as liking a good girl x bad boy dynamic at all really, haha. I'm guessing that probably comes across because I like Chrissy x Eddie in Stranger Things and Beth x Rio in Good Girls? But even in that, I'd argue Eddie's not really a bad boy at all, and the whole point of Good Girls is that Beth's not a quote-unquote 'good girl' or even a good person at all but is able to use the perception that she is to do bad things (and I love her for it!!)

If I was to pinpoint the dynamic that I like in a ship looking at my most recent ones with like, Lestat x Louis (IWTV), Anthony x Kate (Bridgerton), Cam x Rebecca (Under the Bridge), Kendall x Stewy (Succession), as well as the two above, I'd say that probably the thing that attracts me is characters who don't expect each other? I like it when characters are just entirely unprepared for this person who's maybe not their usual type and not anything like what they might have thought they wanted for themselves, and suddenly becomes one of the most important people in their lives?

There's just a natural friction and conflict there, even with couples that maybe wouldn't otherwise have any, that just makes my brain whir, haha, and if you sprinkle in a bit of enemies to lovers and/or mutual derangement, I'm pretty much all in.

[veveisveryuncool]

veve with actual original content?? impossible.

anyways umm have some doodles of the characters from one of the stories in my head 🫶👽 (there is a chihuahua too but i forgot to draw him whoops)

basic storyline is that there's been an unsolved disappearance of one of the owners of a local taqueria, and while the (sherlock wannabe) hired detective tries to solve the case, two regulars of the restaurant (the Weird Kid obsessed with aliens, and the girl whose parents make her study 24/7) and the nephew of the missing owner (who really needs a raise) get way too involved in the mystery as they try to take matters into their own hands.

hbahfbgxn they are like scooby doo but stupider 💜 + they go over their master plans and suspect lists over restaurant booths and tortilla chips

[dr1f7w00d]

not a tomboy or a pick me girl but a secret third thing (a trans man)

[fragglez]

every time I watch a war related movie and they play the reveille i get spooked i HATE that melody

[timcurry-imgoinghomedotmp4]

i'm re-watching gattaca, a movie that seared itself into my brain when i saw it in my freshman year of high school in biology. and uhhhhhh welp as a trans man whose neurotypical cishet 22-months-older brother died in a tragic accident the day before his freshman year of college (that's how my senior year of high school started) let me tell you i am Having An Experience

[mistninja]

Isabelle has done nothing wrong the whole book and she keeps getting trashed around I hate this. She was genuinely into Simon and they eventually do get together but if I was isabelle and i was used like that by some incel looking motherfucker I would kill him before I ever considered dating him. Isabelle girl I'm so sorry. I'm so so sorry an ugly ass bitch like Simon would do that to you. I'm so so sorry that clary is a bitter asshole who hates every woman she meets

[evilhorse]

You’ll compete with Saturn Girl first, whose super-power is thought casting!