@Greyheart1
The dancer in Australia is female - I highlighted them as they are one of the less usual cases where it’s not a male muscling into the female category for an easy win. The business of “validation” is still an unacceptable demand though: humans cannot change sex & the divisions are sex-based, nothing to do with gender (though one might reasonably argue the typical costume requirements for said divisions are highly gendered; as we’ve seen on this thread how far that’s the case varies hugely & further is an issue to be addressed without any suggestion that girls who don’t fancy dancing in mad frocks must be boys).
@EtiennePalmiere so you’re not with Pointe Magazine &/or a big fan of Chase Johnsey or indeed The Trocks? 🤣 I think Bennett’s being pretty harsh on himself (tbf, the man has zero ego) when he talks about “just hoofing around” as Bottom (zero ego but shameless with the puns) in this 2020 “Dance Spirit” article about men doing pointe - & I think it’s become even more common since that was written. Wayne McGregor’s weird “Carbon Life” has lots of male pointe work in - but that really WAS hoofing about. Ed Watson’s got quite into pointe, I think - it’s that thing about perfectionists being driven to learn. Even some (serious, as it were) male recreational dancers learn pointe - for strength, to improve technique, & to improve their partnering (as well as for the sheer joy of it). Men - with all their extra fast twitch muscles - might find some female rep easier: bloody bastard cygnets being an obvious example…
Frankly men in women’s roles in classical ballet is absolute bollocks: classical ballet demands a certain aesthetic & while you might say it shouldn’t &/or it’s unfair & God knows it causes all kinds of problems - the fact remains it is the case & either that body shape & size is acceptable or it’s not. No “as you have special genderfeels you are allowed to take a space for which the levels of competition are INSANE despite not meeting the aesthetic or technique requirements”. Tamara Rojo was treated truly abysmally by Derek Deane when she danced with ENB (she put on enough weight to not die from the anorexia nervosa she’d developed after joining the Company & - knowing this - he told her she’d got fat & had to lose weight) so I wonder if she’s been fed (Chase Johnsey dancing with ENB happened on her watch) a Wrong Body narrative & felt sorry for him. She also knows a TW personally through work who is very sweet, & which will probably cloud things.
BalletWorld has of course had that massive confusion over your one who’s been doing some RAD exams & prancing about in tutus & people got the wrong end of the stick thinking they’d somehow got a place at the RBS or similar 🤦♀️ Frankly it was daft of the RAD to promote them & if the great eejit was really after “passing” &/or being treated like everyone else they’d not have wanted their picture in the paper talking about being a TW in a tutu. Years ago a TW joined a recreational ballet class I did. It was far FAR too hard for her but she wouldn’t have it. She’d transitioned after the death of her spouse (well, she said they were dead 🤷♀️) & retiring & was clearly wealthy so built a home ballet studio; paid for private classes; booked into any summer course that would take her; & travelled down to London for class several days a week. She also had dozens of tutus that all cost hundreds of pounds. She clearly thought doing ballet would somehow confer femininity - when you’re built like a brick shithouse, squeezing yourself into a thin-strapped leotard that strains over your overlarge fake breasts & adding a practice skirt that, lacking sufficient fabric for your circumference, gapes at the front, is anything but feminine. Even if you trowel on the make-up. (Our teacher thought the skirt thing might have been - consciously or otherwise - to show that they were “a woman”; not realising that women aren’t going to go “oh, no penis, my mistake”). She was so disastrously bad - & incredibly arrogant - that my teacher wouldn’t allow us to be in the same group (of 2 or 3) crossing the studio because she was afraid I’d get badly injured. You do get people of both sexes who fancy themselves much better dancers than is the case; & people who are a hazard to shipping ditto - but thinking you are a dainty fairy ballerina not a dumpy fat bloke was a new one on me.