Sex Education and Stone Femme Shoes

Last night I went to see Stone Femme Shoes at the RVT, the second of six shows put on there by Wotever about sexual and gender identity and other stuff too often drawn from the personal experiences of the performers themselves. So far there have been two shows Sex Education by Josephine Wilson and this week Stone Femme Shoes by Jet Moon and both shows have blown me away. Their courage to lay it out there for the audience to look at astounds me. Some of the content is raw and it pulls at me in a way that says this is something real not imagined but felt and touched and from the real world.

Josephines' work was personally affecting to me because I could see so many parallels to my own life. It touched me in a way that was immediate and direct. Her open venerability her journey, not quite fitting into the world and searching for that place you can call yourself home reached right in and opened up old wounds I thought long buried, but also fueled a new hope that I could find that place and that even more importantly I wasn't alone. It sounds a little tired I suppose but I refuse to apologise for it, we all want to feel like we aren't the only ones be it hard or easy sharing experience is part of what builds our humanity connects us to each other and the world.

So I came to see Stone Femme Shoes thinking it would be interesting, but not really expecting it to have the same kind of resonance that Sex Education the week before did. I could not be more wrong. It was just as raw, Jet was incredible, allowing us to see her not just unapologetic and powerful but also human and real and breathtakingly honest. She shocked me and shook me made me look at myself and ask what my perceptions of femme were and how had they been affected by my need to be male and my years of suppressing my femaleness. I've been guilty of making femmes invisible in my time, I've overlooked and simplified. I couldn't do that after seeing this show. My perceptions of the femme landscape have been fundamentally changed and I'll admit I am more than a little ashamed with myself for not being smart enough or brave enough to explore this on my own. This show spoke to me or something in me and I really wasn't expecting it to, it's going to take me a while to digest it I think.

These shows so far have been so powerful to me, I think it is so important for people like myself who are asking the kind of questions we are to have people like Jet and Josephine to share themselves like this, they comfort and disturb, give us answers and questions. I am so looking forward to the shows to come and do so hope that these shows aren't a one off and that more people get a chance to see these and that I get a chance to see them again!