No: anyone can choose which role to dance. Gender-free terminology is about making it clear that you can dance either roll regardless of your gender, but it doesn’t mean anyone will have to dance a different role than they want.
Any time the caller would have said Ladies/Women, now they say Robins (or Ravens), while any time they previously would have said Gents/Men, now they say Larks. The difference is really quite small, but it’s very important to a lot of people.
It’s nomenclature to signal the social permission that anyone can take any role they like. It’s a statement that it’s socially okay for a man to decide to take the Ravens role.
So both have to be able to dance both roles?
No: anyone can choose which role to dance. Gender-free terminology is about making it clear that you can dance either roll regardless of your gender, but it doesn’t mean anyone will have to dance a different role than they want.
Any time the caller would have said Ladies/Women, now they say Robins (or Ravens), while any time they previously would have said Gents/Men, now they say Larks. The difference is really quite small, but it’s very important to a lot of people.
So it is just nomenclature—and here I thought it was a change to the dance that allowed all lark/raven combinations.
It’s nomenclature to signal the social permission that anyone can take any role they like. It’s a statement that it’s socially okay for a man to decide to take the Ravens role.
It’s an incredibly controversial change to nomenclature ;)
I assume sometimes small changes have big effects...
My impression from reading Zac and jeff’s comments is that it is a change in the labels of the roles in dance, not a change in the dancing itself.