Hell yeah CLRG!
I used to do Irish dance. Nothing resembling competitive; just ceilidh (pronounced kay-lee) dance at the local pub. (I used to teach the intermediate class, which is very much the easiest to teach. People knew what they were doing but were not better dancers than me. Very much the sweet spot.)
The dances we did were simple (see: pub dances), but the men's part and women's part were different.
We had a ratio of about 5 women to 2 men, which means we had a hell of a lot of women dancing in the men's spots. We got used to teaching dances as "People dancing in the men's part, turn right" and "people dancing as ladies, reach out your left hand" and so on.
But for calling, you say "Men - right" and "ladies - hand" because you don't have time for anything longer.
And we would've absolutely screamed about "but you need to have people born with a PENIS dancing in the men's spots." Because nothing about having a penis helps you turn right on the 8-count or do 7's to the left at the end of the chorus or whatever. And because we didn't have enough guys to fill those spots anyway.
There is nothing requiring a sex or gender in Irish ceilidh dancing. There is nothing involving gender roles in the actual dancing; there is no "men do courting moves and women do accepting moves" or any such bullshit. Usually the men do a "go forward" move first, and then the ladies, if they're not moving at the same time, but that's about it.
And the point is: If you have learned the dances from one role, you KEEP DANCING THAT ROLE because you don't know those dances from the other side. At least if you're doing them for a presentation or a competition.
We danced in a bar. It was fine if half the ladies started in the wrong direction half the time because they danced in the men's spot more often than not. It is NOT fine if you're doing a big presentation, or if you're competing. A half-step in the wrong direction before you right yourself, is a losing score, or can throw off the whole team, who expects your foot to be out of that spot before the next person enters it. Your half-bar delay can throw the whole group off the music.
And again: Nothing. Requiring. A gender. Even less than ballet, where they might argue "well, the guys sometimes have to lift the ladies and they need to be strong enough and so we can't be having larger, taller ladies." (Set aside that this would be a height/weight issue, not a gender issue.) Irish doesn't have any of that.
The difference between "men" and "ladies" is "who starts standing on the left; who moves forward on the 4 count vs the 8 count, who turns to their left vs their right when you reach the end of the first cycle of music."
Traditionally they were split into pairs of one man, one woman SO THEY COULD FLIRT. If you are dancing around a bonfire at the harvest festival with people from the nearest three villages, and you only see those people twice a year, the ability to flirt with your dance partner may be an important part of finding a potential spouse.
(You can, of course, flirt with people of the same gender. Most people don't want to, and also, for a very long time, it didn't matter how much same-gender flirting you did, you weren't going to marry them.)
If you are dancing on a stage for a St Patrick's Day festival or marching in a parade and it's being streamed to 5,000 viewers, you do not need to be able to flirt with your dance partner; you need to know that they turn left when you turn right so you can grab hands on the beat and move into the next space before someone steps into yours.
