Street dance, as a competitive sport, has had a strong niche following for decades. But we have all recently been inundated with the discussion of what breakdancing should look like because of its Olympic debut – and Australian competitor Rachael “Raygun” Guns Performance becomes a meme. Although her daily routine was chaotic to say the least, it looks like she will be fineMeanwhile, there are no plans to include breakdancing in the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.

But back to real breakdancing. The dance style, which has its roots in black culture in the 1970s, when hip-hop was born in New York, has become a globally recognized sport that has spawned numerous competitions, including Red Bull’s Lord of the Floors, which was first held in 2001. Red Bull, widely known for its deliberately designed spaces to showcase street dance talent, hosted the second edition of Lord of the Floors in Seattle last April, where 16 teams of two competed against each other. A lot has changed since the first edition of this competition 23 years ago – including the way queer dancers navigate the scene.

Of particular note is one dancer who was present at Lord of the Floors, B-Boy Gabriel “Wicket” Jaochico. A musician, B-Boy, and instructor at Texas State University, Wicket is still one of the few openly gay figureheads in the breakdancing community. Now 45, Wicket only recently came out publicly, a move that was preceded by years of anxiety and internal dialogues about feelings he struggled to navigate. While the dance world has always been a more open space for queer people, some hip-hop scenes have held tightly to the homophobia that is ingrained in so much of American music culture.

“Not knowing how to express my feelings or having the courage to talk to anyone about it, I would write and record songs about (being gay) and put them away when I was done,” Wicket, who has participated in and hosted several street dance events, tells me. “This happened several times over the years. When I turned 40, I started feeling a certain way again.” Wicket later came across these songs in a digital folder, which he felt were ready to be released into the world.

Wicket says he had planned to come out on his 40th birthday, but he was still afraid to face his inner conflict. It only took another year. “On my 41st birthday, I gave myself the best present and released all the songs,” he says.

Wicket’s relationship with hip-hop music is complicated. He says the homophobic lyrics he hears provoke him, but at the same time serve as a fuel for his personal development. “As a hip-hop junkie, we love the rawness. We love the roots of rap. We love the classics,” he says, adding that when he hears lyrics that feel like a stab in the back (the other He tries to transform that energy into something positive (the oft-dropped F-word).

And as the culture around LGBTQIA+ discourse evolves, so do fringe movements like breaking. The space and craft created and refined by Black and Latino dancers have generously opened up to breakers of all ethnicities (Wicket is of Filipino descent), but Honoring these roots is important. The core principles are based on mobility, ingenuity, freedom, and a little bit of danger – so it’s natural for queer dancers to want to experience the sport as their most authentic selves.

Luis “Dosu” Carrera, 31, a B-boy from Philadelphia, says it’s easier to be an openly gay breakdancer today. However, there wasn’t much of a supportive community at first and at the time only his close friends knew he was gay. “(Breakdancing) is very masculine, macho and it feels like there’s no room for anything else,” says Dosu.

Dosu came out to close friends in 2015 and made his identity more public in 2019. At first, he says, many people in the community didn’t know how to react. He remembers certain friends suddenly not wanting to take off their clothes in the dressing rooms around him. Dosu says he understands the initial awkwardness, since breaking as an art is so painfully tied to hypermasculine music culture.

In many ways, the changing attitudes toward Wicket and Dosu reflect how masculinity is perceived and interpreted by the larger hip-hop and breakdance community. But for queer dancers like Randi “Rascal” Freitas, 36, of Los Angeles, navigating gender roles and expectations is becoming increasingly difficult.

““Being a queer woman adds another layer to the resistance to hetero-masculine norms in the breaking world,” says Randi, explaining the common misconception that it is easier for lesbian breakers to find acceptance because masculinity is celebrated in the scene. “As a B-girl who often presents as masculine, I don’t find that true… In fact, in all the dance spaces I move in, femininity in women is celebrated more than masculinity in women or AFAB dancers.”

And of course, the issue of female desirability cannot be ignored in the context of a masculine sport, which is one of the reasons why she took the time to come out publicly. “As a B-girl, you sometimes have the feeling that B-boys only “They’ll help you if they think you’re available,” Randi says. “I was afraid that no one would teach me or help me if they knew I wasn’t dating men. And then when I started coming out, I was met with a lot of questionable reactions.”

At one point, Randi tells me, a member of her crew even tried to bring Christianity into a discussion. “I think it’s gotten a lot better,” she says. “The more people speak up, the more people realize, I think, that there are a lot more of us among them than they thought.” Randi will be competing this fall as a wildcard at the Red Bull BC One US National Finals in Los Angeles.

Even though Randi and her peers are all LGBTQ, their experiences with hip-hop and breakdancing, as well as their attitudes toward queerness, are very different, and for good reason: The scene is still heavily hetero-masculine.

And while there’s no easy way to implement a plan that will ensure the complete comfort and easy integration of queer breakdancers into mainstream breakdance communities, Wicket, Dosu, and Randi offer a glimpse into a future where sexuality and gender expression are less relevant to the community’s relationships with one another. Hopefully, for the younger queer dancers making their way onto the scene, all that matters is their ability to throw themselves into the cypher and clean up.