As a 14-year-old competitive Irish dancer, I can say, along with many others, that the pang of a disappointing result is disheartening at best. Emotions run especially high during the last few months of the year when the regional competitions for the leading Irish dance organization, Coimisiún Le Rincí Gaelacha (CLRG), take place. Officially named the Oireachtas, these regional competitions give dancers a shot at qualifying for the national and world championships, hence making it one of the most anticipated competitions of the year. Though my Oirechtas in the mid-Atlantic region had passed the week prior, I kept up to date with my age group's results in the southern region. I smiled to myself as I saw my social media flooded with pictures of elated dancers finally meeting their long awaited goals. However, the typical happy chaos of the weekend was put to an abrupt stop when just four days after the event ended The Daily Signal published an article on the winner of my age group, a transgender competitor. 

This publication detailed the outrage expressed by parents that a trans competitor had won such a major event. Though The Daily Signal’s article is one of the most referenced pieces regarding the anti-trans view, there are many other posts on various websites disagreeing with CLRG’s long standing policy to allow trans dancers to compete in the category in which they feel most comfortable. The majority of the parents, teachers, and competitors that disagree with CLRG’s current policy argue that dancers assigned male at birth have a biological advantage over their female counterparts. They assert that Irish dance is significantly strength focused and that competitors assigned male at birth have stronger legs and more stamina than other dancers.

 Though spectacular jumps and tricks are featured in every dancer’s routines, there are so many other technical layers to the intricate sport that critics chose to ignore when inisting the trans competitor’s win at the 2023 Southern Region Oireachtas was entirely unfair. Championship level athletes are expected to have their feet turned out in a ballet fifth position at nearly all times, keep their arms pinned to their sides, and almost always have their toes pointed. This doesn’t even cover what Irish dance is predominantly known for: the quick footwork, precise timing, and beautiful sound. 

Not only is the claim that dancers assigned male at birth have a competitive advantage inaccurate, local competitions, called feiseanna, are nearly always unisex. Local feiseanna are the only way for beginner dancers to advance to the championship levels. Combining the boys and girls competition occurs quite often, as the number of competitors in the boys category is too small to count towards advancement under CLRG rules. More importantly these local competitions prove that cisgender boys certainly do not always win. I have competed against and have beaten boys many times just in my six year career. 

It isn’t just at the local competitions that dancers assigned female at birth outperform their counterparts. As one can see from the publicly available score sheets from the Southern Region Oireachtas, the winner did not beat her competitors in every round unanimously. Across the fifteen judges who watched her dance, there were multiple scores that ranked her below cisgender athletes. 

After the 2023 Southern Region Oireachtas, a petition to remove trans dancers from the competitions that best align with their gender gained the support of many certified teachers, parents, and dancers. A well known teacher in the Irish Dance Community, wrote “any policy that disenfranchises girls does not achieve this goal [of inclusivity], and in fact takes girls back to a time when they did not have equal opportunities.” Ironically, this teacher’s opinion embraces the age-old stereotype that cisgender women are the weaker sex and disregards the immense amount of work that cisgender women put in to be able to win at both divided and unisex competitions. 

In addition to the sexism, blatant transphobia appears in a disheartening amount of the published statements about the trans dancer’s Oireachtas win. For example, the author of The Daily Signal’s article refers to the transgender competitor as “a boy who identifies as a girl,” and they continuously use he/him pronouns even after explicitly stating that the winning dancer has specified that her pronouns are she/her. 

Furthermore, many educators and parents behind these posts don’t even pretend that they are discussing a hypothetical change to CLRG’s rules. Oftentimes there is a very clear message throughout the publications that it was this particular dancer’s win that infuriated them enough to bring up the topic. I think it is worthwhile to reiterate once again that we are discussing a 14-year-old’s dance competition results. Nearly every dancer I have met has had the occasional nasty experience with one dance parent or the other, but the magnitude of absolute hatred on a national scale towards a minor from adults is absurd to me. 

Not only do I speak from the perspective of a dancer, I am raising my voice as a queer teenager in a conservative dominated space. To see a fellow dancer the exact same age as me be degraded and bullied by adults for who they are is such a perturbing feeling. The lack of action from many authoritative individuals continues to highlight the immense amount of work we have to do to create a welcoming and diverse dance community and society.