At the Finnish Dance Sports Federation (STUL) spring meeting about competition rules on 27.5.2023, the section from the rules of standard and latin dances according to which ”the persons in a dance sports couple must be of a different gender” was removed for competitions under the federation. Now all dance couples can compete in Finnish competitions regardless of their gender. According to the Rainbow Dancers Finland organisation (Sateenkaaritanssijat ry), the change is significant, as it enables many rainbow dance couples to participate, as well as other dance couples.
Representatives from Rainbow Dancers Finland participated in a working group of the Finnish Dance Sports Federation, which prepared the rule change. The rule change was originally initiated and supported along the way by many Finnish dancers and people from dance clubs. We are very thankful for the support we got from different people!
Although we think the rule change is a great step in the right direction, there is still a lot of room for improvement. In the rules for standard and latin dances, the dress code currently greatly limits the outfits of the leader and follower. The leader’s outfit is the former man’s/boy’s outfit and the follower’s outfit is the former girl’s/woman’s. Thus, the outfits are tied to dance roles. In addition, dance outfits will continue to be restricted according to the dancer’s gender, so that ”the male follower will have to dress according to the leader’s dress code” and, on the other hand, ”the female leader has to dress according to the leader’s dress code”. We were disappointed to see these restrictions added to otherwise a gender-neutral rule change.
The rule change has been requested years ago, but activists brought it up again to the federation’s discussions in fall 2020. Trial competitions, with first separated gender-neutral classes, started in spring 2022 and then in fall 2022 the federation allowed the couples to join some of the regular dance competition classes as a trial.
SATEENKAARITANSSIJAT RY 