Dancing With The Stars Week One Eliminations Spark Homophobic Backlash Online
Dancing with the Stars has spent several seasons widening what a partnership on that floor can look like.
The show has featured same-sex pairings before. One reached the finale in 2021. For a format that was rigidly gendered for most of its history, that mattered to viewers who had spent years watching a competition that did not seem to have room for them.
Season 35 premiered this week with one same-sex pairing.
After the women competed for the first time, that pairing went home.
The reaction split exactly where you would expect.
The Dancing With the Stars Results
Sarah Jane Nader and professional partner Hailey Bills were eliminated after the first round.
They were the only same-sex pairing in the cast.
Conner Leavitt and Adele Zaikman also went home this week.
The Pattern Nobody Is Leading With
Here is the detail driving the more useful conversation.
Both eliminated pairings were partnered with new professionals.
Hailey Bills and Adele Zaikman are both new this season. Zaikman came to the show through the competition to find the next pro.
So week one of season 35 sent home the two couples anchored by the newest pros on the cast.
That points to something structural rather than to any individual dancer.
The Bias Argument
A number of viewers argued the result reflected audience prejudice.
One post celebrating the elimination framed it politically, suggesting people were “tired of having a woke agenda shoved into everything they watch.”
The pushback was immediate.
“‘Woke agenda’ is apparently what we’re calling two women dancing now,” one user replied. “Nobody shoved an agenda at you. You voluntarily watched a dance show, saw two women dancing, got offended by their existence, and then celebrated their elimination like you personally defeated the LGBTQ+ community.”
Another pointed at the format’s own history. “Hey so the Argentine tango is traditionally danced by two men and a same sex couple got to the finale in 2021.”
The Name Recognition Argument
The counterargument is duller, and several viewers made it without hostility.
“Or it could be that 1. They’re not well known and 2. They weren’t very good,” one wrote.
Another laid out the fuller version: lower social media following, a new pro, and a cast full of much more recognizable names.
That fits the structural pattern. Week one has always rewarded fame and existing fanbases over technique, because people vote before they have had time to get invested in anyone.
Worth being precise. Nobody can see inside voting behavior. An elimination result cannot prove motive in either direction, and anyone certain about why millions of votes were cast is guessing.
Both readings are plausible. Neither is provable.
The Judging Criticism Is Sharper
Separate from the elimination, a lot of viewers objected to how the pairing was discussed on air.
Several criticized judge Carrie Ann Inaba’s commentary as sexualizing rather than evaluating.
“I’m pretty sure one of the points of them dancing together is to get away from that mindless drooling ‘oOoOoH LeBiAnS’ stereotype,” one viewer wrote.
Another put it personally. “Yeah i immediately said ‘eww’ like as a lesbian her comments made me uncomfortable. Like this is the exact thing queer people have been fighting against for years, calling two girls dancing together hot is weird.”
Viewers also quoted the structure of the critique itself: “The hot factor was there. It was out of sync.”
That complaint is more concrete than the voting theory, because it concerns something actually said on a broadcast rather than an inference about anonymous votes.
The Taylor Hanson Discussion
A separate conversation has picked up around another contestant, and it needs care.
Taylor Hanson’s casting has revived social media discussion of past controversies involving his brothers and bandmates, Isaac and Zac.
Those claims circulate widely; they are not independently verified here, and none concern Taylor. The most detailed post making the rounds says outright that Taylor has remained neutral, while noting his work platforming the restoration of Vernon AME Church, the only standing structure from Historic Black Wall Street, and his involvement with Food on the Move in Tulsa.
Separate those threads. Taylor Hanson is the one competing. Unverified allegations about other people are not his.
One Week Into Season 35 of Dancing With The Stars
Season 35 has lost its only same-sex pairing and both of its newest pros.
Whether those facts connect the way some viewers believe is not something an elimination can establish.
What is verifiable is that the season’s narrative is already partly about who is voting and why, which is not where a competition show wants to be in week one.
The judging criticism may outlast the rest. Broadcast commentary is a record. Voting motive is not.
This article reflects public social media reaction. Claims about individuals referenced in that reaction are unverified, and voting motive cannot be established from elimination results.
