Transgender ballerina who studied at Royal Academy of Dance goes viral for all the wrong reasons

A man who claims to be a transgender ballerina and who has trained at one of the most prestigious dance academies in the world went viral recently after videos of his performances failed to impress viewers.

Several years ago, a man known only as Sophia Rebecca became the first "transgender" dancer to be accepted into the Royal Academy of Dance, a London-based association internationally renowned for its classically trained ballerinas. Already in his mid-30s, Rebecca was much older than his fellow ballerinas, who sometimes retire by age 30 because of the significant toll ballet takes on a woman's body.

Earlier this week, Rebecca went viral on social media after several outlets shared a video of him dancing, though very few applauded his performance:

"I know I shouldn’t laugh but it’s like something out of a surreal comedy!" said one user in reply.

Another posted a humorous photo of an elephant wearing a tutu.

Yet another user with the handle @LunarLemonade posted a video of herself performing the same dance as Rebecca. A might be expected, the comparison does not favor Rebecca:

Rebecca claimed he was always enthralled by dancers and "mesmerized by the costumes," but inner turmoil and latent "transphobia" initially prevented him from pursuing his dream of becoming a dancer. So instead, he drove race cars and studied to become an IT consultant in North Yorkshire in the U.K.

"I’m sure I’d be a much better dancer today had I been able to continue back then," Rebecca told MambaOnline in 2020, "but it doesn’t really matter now. I can’t change that. I am where I am now and I’m working as hard as I can do be the best dancer I can be."

In 2017, he passed the RAD intermediate foundation ballet exam with a merit and eventually began to gain national attention, not for his dancing skills but for his role as "a groundbreaker." When Rebecca was over 40, he was featured as one of four dancers in British Vogue's "Forces For Change" campaign.

Rebecca's influence as a "transgender dancer" even went global. In 2020, shortly before COVID lockdowns, he traveled to Missoula, Montana, for a Ballet Beyond Borders event. Among the group of dancers, Rebecca is easy to spot on stage. Not only is he the only ballerina wearing a bust-enhancing costume, but he awkwardly towers over the other ballerinas, who twirl about him on toe with grace and poise, while he often stands stiff and flat-footed.

Despite criticism for his lack of talent, Rebecca appears undeterred. "I get confronted by stereotypes all the time," he once told RAD, the institution that staked some of its credibility on him. "People have this image in their head if you say 'ballet.' They have a belief that there’s such thing as a ballet body or that it’s delicate and feminine. It can be – but it can also be powerful and strong."

He hopes that someday, a "transgender dancer" will be known as "a dancer who happens to be transgender."

"I’d rather my dancing spoke more for me than my identity as a trans woman," he said.

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