Zoë Comeau in Fucking Trans Women. Photo by Stoo Metz.
Zoë Comeau’s play Fucking Trans Women, which closes a largely sold-out run at The Bus Stop Theatre tonight, is as its title suggests a play about sex through the personal experiences of one individual trans woman, Zoë Comeau. Under the umbrella term “fucking” Comeau explores not just sex acts themselves, but also feelings of intimacy and connection more broadly, and how she experiences worries, joy, confusion, funny mishaps, pleasure, and contentment in her sexual relations with others, and with herself, often in ways that are broadly relatable, but sometimes more specifically to her because she is trans.
As a cis theatre critic I have attended and written about a few different “sex plays,” often written by other cis women, and often for the Fringe Festival, so I was struck by how much Fucking Trans Women was a familiar experience for me, but also by how much I was learning throughout the show. It certainly gave me answers to questions I never would have asked anyone specifically, and also explored topics that I had never even considered, like how taking hormones affects the sex organs specifically, and how this often changes the language and the ways in which trans folks feel most comfortable talking about and performing certain acts. This seems obvious to me in hindsight, but it had never occurred to me before. On the other hand, there was much that I related to in Comeau’s anecdotes as well, because none of us know everything about everyone, everyone’s body is different, and we are all learning how to have an experience both or all the folks involved will enjoy every time we engage in sexual acts, and that can be embarrassing, worrisome, and awkward for anyone.
Comeau is an ideal person to help guide an audience along this journey because she exudes an easy confidence, that puts you immediately at ease that she has complete command of this narrative, and you’re going to be well looked after, but she also is extremely delightful and endearing, which gives the room the intimate rapport of a bedroom during a sleepover party. Indeed, the play oscillates beautifully between the more confessional aspects of friends sharing personal stories, and a more academic conversation where Comeau is very precise in her language, and articulate in explaining certain truths and experiences more generally. This part is complemented beautifully (and often hilariously) by animation done by Tori Ryan, with projection design by Matthew Downey. Being able to move so seamlessly from a lecture hall vibe to a sleepover vibe and back again worked really well.
There is also a bit of a meditation on intimacy and language in the play, which I found really interesting and beautiful. Comeau is Acadian and francophone, and part of the play is in French (with the English translation projected so it’s easy to follow), but I wondered for a bilingual performer, whether there were certain experiences, certain ideas or memories, that were easier to speak about in French, and whether the most intimate elements of the play for Comeau made more sense for her en Français. For me personally, as someone who was able to understand most of what she was saying in French, I felt like I was being invited to know her more deeply, to connect with her more closely, but also that I, obviously, had to work harder to do it. What a metaphor.
In the program the play is described as “a world where the sexual experiences of transgender women are celebrated and normalized.” I wish I had watched more than a season and a half of Sex and the City for this analogy, but as a society there is a double standard about sex, on the one hand it is shied away from, hidden and taboo, covered up and glossed over, and the folks on the political right are yelling about it nonstop, but on the other, heterosexual cisgender sex has been on television all the time for ages. It’s in our faces, and it’s in our living rooms so much we probably don’t even really notice it. I used to watch The Young and the Restless with my grandmother when I was a toddler after all. Obviously, Queer sex and trans sex should be de-stigmatized, and normalized just the same, and Fucking Trans Women is helping to do that today in Halifax.
Fucking Trans Women closes tonight at The Bus Stop Theatre (2203 Gottingen Street, Halifax) at 8:00pm. It is sold-out, but there may be some seats available if you come to the door before showtime. The show is extremely accessible, there is audio description of the animation, ASL Interpretation, and an Active Listener available. The Bus Stop Theatre is fully wheelchair accessible, including the gender neutral washrooms.
