"Life update: I’m transitioning! That means I'm transgender if you didn’t know."
Mey RudeThe Dance Moms alumni association keeps getting queerer.
Another prominent member of the Lifetime reality series has come out this week, as nonbinary dancer Zackery Torres announced on TikTok that they are transitioning and now use both they/them and she/her pronouns.
"Hi everyone, it’s me Zackery Torres and you may know me from Dance Moms," she says while wearing a cute crop top and long black skirt in the video. "Life update: I’m transitioning! That means I'm transgender if you didn’t know. My pronouns are they/she which means that they or she are totally fine, and I’m just hopping on here to tell you that I’m going to be posting more on TikTok and I’m excited about it and I don’t know why I’m doing all these awkward moves because I’m rusty!"
Congratulations Zackery, you look gorgeous!
Torres, 22, was the first contestant on Abby’s Ultimate Dance Competition to be assigned male at birth, and joined the Candy Apple team on Dance Moms.
She previously came out as nonbinary last year when she was attending the University of Southern California. In an interview with The Daily Trojan, they talked about the pressures they felt on Dance Moms to conform to gendered stereotypes.
"I started seeing all of the expectations that teachers — well-known dance teachers, and well-known choreographers — had for me as a male dancer growing up and at the time identifying as a boy," Torres told the paper. "'Oh, you’re too feminine, you need to dance like a man.'Just having teachers tell you that on national television, all this stuff, it kind of really got to me."
Torres also posted on Instagram thanking their fans for the reaction to the news. "Don't really have a ton of words to express how I am feeling right now, other than grateful," they wrote. "Grateful to everyone who has supported me and continued to help me be my full self. Grateful for the outpour of love and support. Grateful to all the advocates who made this possible."
Torres follows fellow Dance Moms alum JoJo Siwa in coming out recently. Siwa came out in January in a series of TikToks where she said she is pansexual and has a girlfriend.
"After being my best friend for over a year, January 8th, 2021 I got to start calling this exceptional human my girlfriend, and since then I’ve been the happiest I have ever been!" she wrote on Instagram. "She seriously is the most loving, supportive, happiest, protective, and just the most beautiful perfect person in the world. And I get to call her mine! Happy one month to my girl! I love you more and more every day!"
Siwa later made the cover of People where she said that she is pansexual. "I always just say gay because it just kind of covers it or queer because I think the keyword is cool," she said. "I like queer. Technically, I would say that I am pansexual because that’s how I have always been my whole life is just like, my human is my human."
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0Dance Moms Star Zackery Torres Is Transitioning, Updates Pronouns
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