Soft Blocks and Soft Blocks

Slight mash up of  topics  here, linked by the  commonality of the reference to them ...

So Soft Blocks and Soft Blocks  and how they  impact on the life of  transgender  dancer ...

Firstly 'Soft blocking' on social media...

Twitter doesn't have an option to easily remove a 'follower'  however  it was discovered quite a few years ago if you block someone who follows you, then  unblock them a few seconds / minutes later they can still see your content if they go to your account and interact with you but the 'follow' is taken off so Twitter won't serve up (as much of) your content to their feed ...

My Twitter following is as of the time of writing this post just over 900 people, i have no idea where that puts me in centile terms of numbers of followers
, but interestingly it's rather more followers than some professional dance artists and choreographers, however my following does seem to break down into three main groups- Dance people, LGBTQIA+ people and a few people who know me from my past life in health or because I still comment on health topics at times ...  

secondly 'Soft Blocks'  as a dancer

Soft blocks are a type of ballet shoe, they are fundamentally constructed in the same way as a pointe shoe, and have a toe box, however they don't have a  shank just the thick leather sole traditionally associated with pointe shoes and an innersole designed to provide a similar profile to the actual pointe shoe the  shoe is based on.

You can't / shouldn't go on pointe in them, especially unsupported, as the shank is what supports you en pointe.

The none pointe work part of the Intermediate and Advanced Vocational graded exams in ballet  specify that female presenting  dancers should  wear  soft blocks for the  exam... 

The very fabulous Leanne has a post on her Blog, why as a pointe fitter and dancer herself she thinks  they are a good thing. This blog post also has a link to  you tube video Leanne has made about them... Leanne and I have spoken at length but she's not my pointe fitter due to geography, but she is a mutual friend of my current fitter.

So where does this intersect ?

Unfortunately trans people and dancers can have somewhat obsessive and fetishistic admirers or 'chasers'... So, sadly, that is the intersection as I have to curate my follower list on twitter quite extensively because of these people.

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