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Irish dance org makes right call with tolerant stance on trans competitors

Irish dance organization CLRG has made the right calls regarding its trans competitors, including a recent Oireachtas champion.

Irish Central

By Kerry O'Shea

December 08, 2023

The leadership within An Coimisiún Le Rincí Gaelacha (CLRG, the oldest and largest competitive Irish dance organization in the world) should be proud to have permitted a trans dancer, a minor who uses she / her pronouns, to compete in a girls' category at the Southern Region Oireachtas earlier this month.

The dancer, who previously competed in the boys category, including at this year's World Irish Dancing Championships, won her age group at the Oireachtas, a regional event where dancers can qualify for the more elite North American Irish Dancing Championships and World Irish Dancing Championships.

Before the Southern Region Oireachtas began, PJ McCafferty, the Director of the Southern Region, a subset of the Irish Dance Teachers Association of North America (IDTANA), which works in tandem with CLRG, publicly clarified that precedent had already been set regarding dancers competing in the gender category they identify with.

“I am aware that there is a great deal of upset in the Southern Region about the CLRG and IDTANA policies that transgender Irish Dancers enter competitions that align with the gender identity of their everyday public life; their academic, workplace, social, and home life," McCafferty wrote in the statement that was shared on the IDTANA-Southern Region's Facebook page on November 21.

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As a former Irish dancer who, in my role here at IrishCentral, has been covering the CLRG scandals in recent years, I was pleasantly surprised by how proactive the Southern Region was in publicly sharing McCafferty's statement.

Further, I'm also pleasantly surprised that the organization is urging tolerance and respect for its dancers - it's a much-needed win for CLRG, which has rightly been under scrutiny in recent years.

Thank you CLRG for overcoming all the rhetoric and animosity against us.