In 2023, a wave of sports from track and field to chess released policies banning transgender athletes from categories aligned with their gender identities. These policies have followed increasing anti-trans laws at the state level over the last few years, many aimed particularly at trans girls in sports.
So, when a teenage trans girl entered and won the girls’ competition at a regional world-qualifying Irish dance championship, or oireachtas, in late 2023, most dancers were shocked to learn that An Coimisiún Le Rincí Gaelacha (CLRG), Irish dance’s oldest and largest governing body, had adopted a trans-inclusive policy years ago and virtually nobody had noticed.
Though the sport had made inclusion its policy, many in the community — including prominent teachers and adjudicators — weren’t so accepting; thousands petitioned CLRG to reverse the policy and strip the teen of her win. (Editor’s Note: The writer of this story is an Irish dancer who circulated a counter-petition in support of the teen.) As her win was debated in the Irish dance world, the teen (who is not being named here to avoid further negative impact) faced harassment across social media, on online forums, and in right-wing news outlets — harassment that was swiftly renewed when CLRG reaffirmed this policy in February.
In a statement to Teen Vogue, CLRG said its policy is rooted in a commitment to creating “a safe and inclusive environment for every dancer in our community,” adding that while this policy was clarified in 2021, dancers have always been allowed to compete in alignment with their gender identity. “Whilst we welcome open and respectful discussion,” a representative for the organization said, “we do not condone harassment or bullying of any kind both online and offline.”
As many pointed out, this backlash didn’t just clash with CLRG’s policy — it was at odds with the spirit of Irish dance. A sport born out of oppression, Irish dance has long been a safe haven for dancers of all backgrounds and identities. For the community to turn its back on trans dancers felt not only cruel, but against the fundamental values of the sport.
From the outside, Irish dance is, in many ways, a contradiction: an art and sport in equal parts, characterized by twin commitments to tradition and evolution. Indeed, with competition in its DNA, evolution is itself integral to that tradition. The criteria by which Irish dance is judged are ideals. A dancer’s footwork can always be faster, their feet more turned out, their jumps higher, their beats louder. Yet as it reaches ever-higher, Irish dance’s integrity holds strong. Irish words like oireachtas and feis (local dancing competition) are ubiquitous. Swarovski-encrusted dresses descend directly from early dancers’ “Sunday best.” The tunes change, but the rhythm at its heart remains the same.
So, for trans people in the sport, there’s a similarly fractured experience. Overall, Irish dance is an accepting space, one where the institution supports its dancers, and where many can find joy in community. But it’s also a place where gender matters, and it’s certainly not immune to the transphobia that pervades many sports, and society in general.
For 16-year-old Ashton Talma, Irish dance has always been accepting. Talma has been publicly out as transgender for two-and-a-half years and has competed in the boys' competition since his first championship-level Oireachtas in 2022.
“Since it is a smaller community… I feel like everyone's trying to help each other in any way that they can,” he says. Riverdance troupe member Morgan Bullock says that as a Black dancer in a sport where most participants are white, she was never made to feel like she didn’t belong. “I was always aware of the fact that I was different,” she says, “However, I never thought of this as a negative thing. In competitive Irish dancing, standing out from the crowd is everything.” Still, Bullock says she has experienced microaggressions, and while she has not experienced direct racism within the community, she has friends “who cannot say the same.”
“Overall,” Bullock says, “I would describe it as open. I feel like anyone, no matter who you are, can be a part of the community and find their people within it.”
For KJ Campbell, who danced in the girls’ competition throughout their competitive career and identified as queer long before they came out as nonbinary and transmasculine, their identity has been the reason why they feel so accepted. “I almost felt like I fit in more being queer than if I was a straight female,” Campbell says. But like the world at large, trans people still don’t see full acceptance in Irish Dance. “Coming out as trans, when it starts to question people's beliefs… that's when the community gets that divide,” Campbell says, something they found to be true in their early years in the sport.
Like many dance forms, gender is integral to Irish dance’s structure, with choreographic and stylistic differences spanning both the rhythmic hard shoe and lighter soft shoe dances. While Irish dance has different kinds of soft shoe dances, one, the slip jig, is only danced by women. Girls dance soft shoe dances in silent, form-fitting shoes called ghillies, while boys’ soft shoes are fitted with fiberglass heels to facilitate stamps and heel clicks. While local competitions are often mixed-gender, major championships are divided for nearly all groups.
For trans dancers, a gendered system like this one has the power to limit or affirm. Campbell says that growing up in their dance school, “gender had to be [performed] a certain way,” and recalls their teachers directing transphobic slurs at their performance in a school show, years before they came out. “This coming from two gay men that I really looked up to definitely postponed my transition,” they say. Without space to express their gender authentically, Campbell says they preferred team dancing. “In teams,” they say, “you don't really have to be yourself. You can kind of just blend in.”
Today, dancing and teaching at a new, trans-affirming school, Campbell says they prefer solo dancing. “I kind of see Irish dancing as two sections,” they say. “The pre-transition is not the best part. The post is almost like this euphoric second chance at what I always wanted.”
19-year-old Fabien Hawkins says that when he came out as trans and began competing as a boy, his approach to dancing transformed. “I felt more comfortable in myself as a person, which helped me mentally,” he says. “I'm more comfortable with myself, so I'm more comfortable with my dancing, so I'm more comfortable with everything.” He says after being stuck at the same level for years, this new confidence transformed his dancing and results and gave him the freedom to express himself more authentically across his life. “I started listening to different music as well, just completely,” says Hawkins, who today competes in a vest inspired by My Chemical Romance’s Welcome to the Black Parade. “My whole style is sort of changed, and I'm more comfortable with how I am now.”
Hawkins says his dance school immediately supported his transition, but despite CLRG’s inclusive policies, he faced structural resistance in changing competitions. “It was definitely a process trying to compete in the guys' competition at Nationals and Oireachtas. We had to go through a million different people,” he says. He also remembers hearing a parent complain that it was “not fair” that he stopped competing slip jig, even though slip jig competitions never involve boys, cis or trans. “You can complain that the guys don't do slip jig at all,” he says, noting that this comment was an outlier and he has never received backlash on the scale of recent events.
The way Hawkins sees it, this contrast can be attributed to that dancer’s success in a stiff competition. “If a trans athlete got last place, they wouldn't care,” he says. “But as soon as they do well, then they're like, ‘Oh, that's not fair. They have an edge.’”
Campbell suspects an element of misogyny as well. “There's petitions out to protect female Irish dancers,” they say, “but there is not anything to protect male Irish dancers from trans men.”
Much of the online backlash to the young trans girl’s Oireachtas win asserted that trans women have a biological strength advantage over their cis counterparts, arguments Campbell says “weren't even valid.” Irish dance, which has no set scoring rubric, is judged subjectively on a wide variety of technique-based factors including rhythm, turnout, toe height, flexibility, and posture, all coming down to the judge’s discretion. Hawkins says he loves to see how adjudicators judge a competition, noting that he may disagree with their perspective. “That's not saying, ‘Oh, I deserve to be number one,’ but I like to see, ‘Oh, well, maybe they were looking for this instead of what I would look for.’”
Hawkins observes that judging criteria can also vary between gendered competitions, with girls’ steps often prioritizing gracefulness and precise technique and boys’ prioritizing power. “Tight knees is a very popular comment for girls' competitions,” he says. “But for the guys, they're just sort of like, ‘Well, you're getting your jumps high, so it's not as important.’”
“Even just between each dancer, it's very different,” he adds. “Each step is different, the way each person performs it is different.”
Ultimately, dancers say, the only key to success in any competition is hard work. Mollie Mulvey, a two-time Oireachtas champion, who placed as high as 27th at the World Championships before transitioning, says she realized quickly that her natural talent would only get her so far, even in a comparatively small boys’ competition. “You have to make sacrifices to get the results,” she says. “My first Oireachtas I got fourth, and I was like, ‘I didn't win it? What is this?’”
“It really comes from hard work and training. Biological differences in Irish dance don't make an impact at all,” says Talma. His mom, Melissa, adds that outside the discussion around trans dancers, dancers’ varied talents are regularly celebrated. “Irish dancers come in every size and shape possible. It doesn't even matter what you look like or how tall you are,” she says. “Some champs are six feet tall and [have] long, long legs, and some are short and stocky and have crazy muscles.”
“I get sappy sometimes… watching these kids,” she says. “I know how many hours of studio time this represents and how many years of training and dedication. It's not something you can just do. It's something you work very, very hard for.”
The dedication it demands, combined with its largely accepting culture, has made Irish dance a safe space for many. “Dance has always been my escape — not that there's anything I need to escape from,” Talma laughs. “I can't really imagine my life without Irish dance.” This sentiment is widely shared by other trans dancers. “I wasn't drinking the Kool-Aid, I was chugging it,” says Mulvey, who says she threw herself into dancing wholeheartedly after that first Oireachtas. Mulvey says she always knew she was a girl, but early experiences with conversion-style therapy left her confused and repressed. “I had to deal with healing things at home before I felt ready to present to the world.” Mulvey, who received her TCRG (CLRG’s teaching certification, which precludes further competition) before transitioning, says that while she wishes she’d had the “courage” to compete as a girl, she is grateful for the refuge Irish dance gave her during a challenging time.
That, Mulvey says, is what makes the recent controversy so disappointing. “I'm surprised that people have the audacity,” she says. “I thought Irish dance was going to be one of those really safe havens where you wouldn't even dare to bring that up.”
“There's no reason to be like, ‘Oh, I'm uncomfortable,’” Mulvey says. “That's on you if you're uncomfortable. You need to go to therapy if you're uncomfortable.”
Campbell says that, given their past experiences, the transphobia itself wasn’t surprising, but the hatred directed towards a young girl was. “That's what really, really hurt my heart,” they say. “I thought that we had gotten a little further than that.” The Talmas echo this sentiment. “I was like, this is a kid,” says Ashton. Melissa adds that the backlash weaponizes the vulnerability inherent to competition. “A dance competition is a child, generally, going out there and trying to get a report card from a judge,” she says. “It's just bonkers to me that people would be hateful about it.”
Ashton says Irish dance’s low stakes make the hate particularly shocking. “There's not million-pound or million-dollar prizes,” he says. “It's something that people really do because they love it.” Mulvey points out that in a sport that means so much to so many, success takes on an importance beyond any tangible gain. “My dad used to tell me… when I would be freaking out side-stage… he’d be like, ‘It's just dance,’” she says. While it helped in the moment, “now I'm like, ‘Well, dance is my life. Don't say it like that.’”
“It's a subjective sport that you prepare for by trying to be your absolute best, and that’s a lot of pressure to put on yourself,” she says.
Even under ideal circumstances, the clear-cut binary of Irish dancing’s structure doesn’t accommodate a more complex gender spectrum. “If I was forced to pick between girl or boy, that would be difficult,” says Campbell, who adds that in their ideal world, dancing would be divided simply by age. “But also I feel like you should have the right to choose.”
Campbell says given the recent levels of backlash and harassment, as well as their past experiences, they don’t currently feel safe returning to competition, choosing instead to focus on performing and teaching. They say if they ever did return, they’d compete in the men’s category, while their immediate goal is to pursue more male roles in shows.
Beyond upholding an inclusive competitive structure, dancers are adamant about demanding cultural change. “It's so hard to advocate for yourself as a child,” Campbell says, adding that even small changes, like more inclusive costuming, can be transformative to kids’ wellbeing. Talma says his dance teacher has been instrumental not only in ensuring a smooth transition, but in swiftly shutting down any backlash. “A parent at our dance school has outwardly said some things that are obviously transphobic,” he says. “I just ignore it, and I keep going. My teacher was like, ‘That's not okay.’” Melissa says she has appreciated that their school never kept “tradition for tradition's sake,” saying she thinks that’s where many dance schools get “hung up.”
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Indeed, in a sport as committed to evolution as Irish dance, it is hard to say what could better represent that tradition than shifting the culture towards inclusivity. Both Campbell and Hawkins say parents of young trans kids have commented on the positive impact of their presence. Both remain hopeful about that future if frustrated by the lingering disconnect between community backlash and institutional support. Hawkins adds that the roadblocks he faced switching competitions, even with an inclusive policy, highlight a need for more airtight implementation. “They need to work on making it an easier process,” he says, “because there's definitely going to be a lot more people that are going to be more comfortable coming out.”
CLRG says it is currently working on an official Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion policy to be voted on in May.
Meanwhile, Talma says he hopes trans dancers can stay focused on why they love the sport. “Don't let what other people are thinking of you, or how they want to perceive you, stop you from doing it,” he says. “Because you love it, and you know that you work hard for this. You know that you put all this effort in… Just do it for you.”
Credits:
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Sylvia Jarrus
Ramie Ahmed
Hadley Chittum
Madison Speyer
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