Choreographer Rosie Kay forced to resign from her own company

Those are good points, @Anactor.

The Royal Opera House story is mind boggling. I mean, ROH audiences pay a considerable amount of money to see performances from a traditional repertoire. There’s room for innovation but it still has to reflect what audiences actually want and will pay for.
I can see that the world of dance must be really difficult if you are uncomfortable with your gender and I wish them all the luck in the world in setting up their own companies that make art in the way they want and still manage to attract enough audiences to make it viable. I am sure it can be done with enough hard work, creativity and talent.
Rather than getting a job at the ROH and then whinging when it isn’t all exactly the way you want it to be…

Nope, they want to tackle the Royal Opera House after Rosie Kay has received her “just desserts”.

So they might have asked the dancer if they could wear falsies either to fit the costume they had, or so that the costume could be fitted to any subsequent dancer with larger breasts.

A costume for a female role fitted to a male-shaped dancer is probably only going to be re-usable for other male-shaped dancers in female roles.

The breasts comment in those screenshots was interesting in that they were offended that bigger breasts were indicative of a woman. None of us would be here without them. They seem to forget biology.

Their issue was that “to assign physical bodily attributes as ‘male’ or ‘female’ is transphobic.” 🤦‍♀️

Why would dancers need bigger breasts unless they are dancing burlesque or private shows? Big breasts are seen as a disadvantage in most kinds of dance.

The breasts comment in those screenshots was interesting in that they were offended that bigger breasts were indicative of a woman. None of us would be here without them. They seem to forget biology.

I know @AlfonsoTheUnrepentant

Just being really clear, for anyone who is still pondering...

"It did make me laugh when they complained nobody had been warned about the presence of trans people in the building,"

They've had fair warning now!

Trans does not have to involve any actual alteration at all from the cis child of a couple of years before.

Honestly, if I were a prospective employer, I simply wouldn't hire them, superstar level or no. I would want someone who could come in, do the job, take direction and get along reasonably well with the rest of the team (yes, there are always going to be frictions).

Someone who needs to be tiptoed around is not worth the trouble.

But, erm, is everyone being commanded that they must remember to address you by the right pronoun at all times (when you are one in hundreds, and really not even slightly important to anyone except yourself) really an employment right? Not a privilege that a new arrival has not yet done anything whatever to earn?

Remembering my first job: it took about six weeks before the majority of the staff (the ones who knew I existed) remembered my name. Should I have taken the company to an employment tribunal or something?

The thing that strikes me about the screenshots is they don’t seem to suggest a team player. If I’d read those and then found out the writer was going to be in the same company -

• it’d be ‘wow, you’d better be a superstar level dancer, because you sound like a total nightmare to work with.’ The poor costume department. The poor administrative staff.

This person’s dancing really needs to be of a level to make all the angst worth it.

I know, @HoardingSamphireSaurus. My tongue was very deeply in my cheek when I wrote that post.

Oh yes there is @AlfonsoTheUnrepentant That's why they also had a moment to ponder having apparently being asked what was in their knickers!

You know, the stuff They always come out with... that nobody ever actually says or thinks.

Wait, people hadn't been informed of the presence of trans people in the building (like they are special VIPS, or royalty or something)...but I thought you couldn't tell if someone was trans? So how would you know if someone was trans or not?

Those screenshots.

Boiled down to "Yes, sweetheart, we'll do our best to remember your pronouns, but in dance you are a bloke, now lift that ballerina and stop pratting about with the swans"

Again, I shal say it loud, in context, and in absolute truth, there is a physiological reason those hips don't lie!

(Yet if everyone had been told, you bet that would be transphobic too.)

Those tweets copied above are just astonishingly self centred, petty, self aggrandising and demanding. Why the jeffing hell do these people think “GENDER” is some kind of identity God that’s more important than anything else, anyway? FFS.

And I'd like to see Ms Non-Binary lift women the way that men do. I would be very surprised if she could.

Women can lift women and men - you get trained in how to do it safely & effectively in contemporary dance training (especially contact improvisation). But a woman lifting in this way is not the same as a man - and certainly the one-armed presage lifts, or shoulder sits, or fish dives that you see in classical ballet pas de deux might be very difficult for a woman.

The Royal Opera House story is mind boggling. I mean, ROH audiences pay a considerable amount of money to see performances from a traditional repertoire. There’s room for innovation but it still has to reflect what audiences actually want and will pay for.
I can see that the world of dance must be really difficult if you are uncomfortable with your gender and I wish them all the luck in the world in setting up their own companies that make art in the way they want and still manage to attract enough audiences to make it viable. I am sure it can be done with enough hard work, creativity and talent.
Rather than getting a job at the ROH and then whinging when it isn’t all exactly the way you want it to be…

Were there any dancers that were happy in the company and didn't participate in the vilification? Aren't they furious with the way these narcissists have stuck their feet out an tripped up their careers? I know it must be daunting, but I would really like to hear from them.....

Well, it's certainly a tough industry but (speaking in general terms here) that should not mean you have to put up and shut up if your employment rights are being shat on.

Good grief. The stupidity in those screenshots is staggering.

It did make me laugh when they complained nobody had been warned about the presence of trans people in the building, leading to them being misgendered “by every single person they came into contact with”.

Those screenshots are vile. Such righteous indignation! Any kind of career in performance is fucking tough and there's no end to the barriers most people face trying to make it - race, class, sex, age, disability, income, location... That this lot seem to be putting barriers in their own way, demanding everyone bow down to their ideas about identity is beyond belief. This furious whinging is ridiculously unpleasant. These people sound so miserable.