A Seattle women’s dance team was booted from a country western event hosted by an LGBTQ organization due to their American-flag-themed shirts making some attendees feel "unsafe."
The Borderline Dance Team was scheduled to perform at the Emerald City Hoedown, hosted by the LGBTQ Rain Country Dance Association.
However, things quickly went south when the team showed up in patriotic attire.
The team wrote in a post on Facebook, "Our Dance Team along with a few others were scheduled to perform at the Emerald City Hoedown in Seattle on Saturday. They’ve been asking us for three years to perform but because of their Covid restrictions, we have been unable to until this year. Dance teams work their boots off preparing for performances like these. Extra practices, babysitters, ferry rides, hours upon hours of practice and commute time and time away from their families. We all were very excited to perform for this event."
The team's post continued on to explain that they were told the flag tops were offensive to some convention attendees and that there was a "small group that felt 'triggered and unsafe.'"
"They had several claims for this reasoning. Mostly associated with the situation in Palestine and the Trans community in America," the post continued. "At first we were told we would just be boo’d, yelled at and likely many of them would walk out. This did not deter us. But then we were given an ultimatum. Remove the flag tops and perform in either street clothes (which most didn’t bring as they traveled there in their uniforms) or they would supply us with ECH shirts from years past… Or, don’t perform at all, which effectively was asking us to leave."
Another dance squad, the West Coast Country Heat, also bowed out of the event in solidarity with the Borderline Dance Team.
"Our friends, West Coast Country Heat, who were also scheduled to dance for the convention that evening also did not perform as they too proudly don the colors of our country in the same spirit of patriotism that we do. Both of our teams stood in solidarity and put actions to words," the post stated.
The Emerald City Hoedown vaguely addressed the incident on Facebook but has not followed up at the time of publishing.
"Hi y’all! After the close of another amazing Hoedown weekend, we know there are some questions about the Saturday night performance line-up," the post stated. "We appreciate y’all giving us the time to clear up misunderstandings and address the situation with people directly involved. We will be posting a follow-up statement later this week once we are able to have those conversations."
