In college, I told one of my dearest friends, a black woman, that I thought she was limiting the huge potential of who she could be as a human being by sticking so resolutely to her self-identification as a black person.  Not in so many words, and with an effort (failed) to express this "sensitively".  I will never forget the shock and hurt I saw her in her face.  So much of who she was, she told me, was tied fundamentally to her being a black woman.  What I was telling her, she said, was like asking her to abandon huge chunks of who she was.

On the one hand, I still believe what I said was right, in some way.  I saw her as this amazing human being, and compartmentalizing that amazing person into a box labeled "Black Woman" seemed like such a reduction of who she really was and who she could be.  On the other hand, who am I to tell her that she should abandon -- or "transcend" -- her black identity?  How could I -- a non-black man -- possibly understand what her experience was like, much less judge how she decided to view herself?  Virtually abstract questions for me, but very concrete, urgent questions for her.

Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.

not every woman of color identifies primarily as a "Womyn of Color".

That's fine for them.  For example, being half-Japanese, I could easily be considered/pass as a person of color.  But I do not identify as a "person of color", not even "primarily".  On the other hand, my sister, I believe, does identify as a "person of color".

The point of my sister's dance teacher was that there are women of color who do identify primarily as such.  And that is their own business, not yours or mine.

And one of her goals, as I quoted is

To create a network of support that validates the artistic practices and creativity of a group of women of color who have traditionally had difficulty in finding that support.

Her view was that white women, at least in Minnesota, cannot relate to the experiences of "women of color", and their experience would hamper in the fostering of that community/network of support for those women who do self-identify as women of color.

Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.

The difficulty of assessing if a dance form is gendered is very difficult. <...>

Plus, when do you freeze truth and say that is how it should be.

Again, good points.  Kabuki is currently and for most of its history has been an all-male form of theatre.  However, its founder was a woman and originally women played both male and female parts.  So which is the "real" kabuki?

Equally in a world where artistic, cultural and gender boundaries are being challenged it seems perverse in the extreme to declare that some things just are and that we can't tinker at the boundaries.

As I wrote in my previous comment, I don't think (though I don't know for sure) that she believes racial and cultural boundaries "just are" and goes by some kind of yes-no black-white check-list.  I am sure she considers each case on its own grounds within its own context, and looking at the unique pluses and minuses that each case may bring to the community, aware that no pre-formulated definition or check-list can exhaust the unanticipated possibilities that reality may bring up.  At least, I hope and expect she does.

An excuse for darker inadmissable reasons.

I am unclear as to what you imagine these reasons may be in this particular case.  What is real -- based on what I have seen personally -- is that her dance group provides a very meaningful and fruitful experience, artistically and "personally", for its participants and audience, and the bathwater must be really really dirty in order to justify throwing out the baby (the "women of color" membership requirement) along with it.

Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.

On the contrary, reading your diary made it clear from the outset that the very same issues come up with gender.  In fact, you put your finger in one of your earlier comments about racial exclusion on a conundrum which I (perhaps oversimplifying) I thought might have a parallel in gender exclusion:

The white woman who self-identifies as black trying to enter a "colored only" group seems to me to pose the same difficult case as the man who self-identifies as female trying to enter a "women only" group.  Here I tread in very unfamiliar territory, and as such may completely be mistaken, but my understanding is that there are people who while physiologically of one sex/gender, feel themselves "deep inside" to actually be of the other gender, to have been "born the wrong sex" so to speak.  (I have to admit, this is based on nothing more than what I have read/seen in popular media, books, movies, documentaries, etc. and as such may be sorely mistaken.)

If there are such men who feel themselves to be women and women who feel themselves to be men, then who are others to exclude saying that they are not who they say they are?  Similarly, if a white person says they are black, or a black person says they are white, who are others to exclude them saying that they are not who they say they are?

This problem is too difficult for me, and though it may be a cop-out in the face of this complexity, I tend to think that these categories -- "male", "female", "black", "white", "latino", "european", "french", "anglo", etc. -- are merely words that have some contextually determined pragmatic value, but do not have any objective or absolute meaning or denotation.  And so, while they are no doubt often very useful, in fact, almost necessary, their meanings must be kept in perspective and context, and understood and "negotiated" on a case by case basis.  I believe Ananya shares this notion of racial and ethnic groups, but I am not sure: unfortunately, we did not discuss this very difficult and important point.

Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.