VSAC Represents at Rae Spoon Documentary Event
You don’t need to have grown up on the prairies or even be transgender to identify with Chelsea McMullan’s new documentary My Prairie Home about transgender musician Rae Spoon. This musical documentary is an emotional account of Rae Spoon’s experience growing up on the prairies in an Evangelical household, coming out as gay and later as transgender, and living with their father’s mental illness. Told through musical videos of Rae Spoon’s songs this deeply moving story encapsulates aspects of being transgender that created an excellent scene for a heart felt and community building conversation on March 26th at the Victoria Event Centre.
I was honored to be invited as one of the panelists for the post-showing dialogue at Open Cinema‘s event last month along side Metta, Daphne Shaed, and Maureen Bradley. We were all able to speak about our experiences with gender, along with some other audience members who shared their stories, and it was amazing that although we all had unique narratives to share there were common threads between all of us. Throughout the conversation, which also had many people chiming in on Twitter and Facebook, there were tears, moments of laughter, and many opportunities to have very real conversations about what it means to be trans*. We also got to hear from a group in Calgary that had just seen the film. I know I left the this wonderful event feeling invigorated and inspired, and I hope others did too!
One of the awesome things that Open Cinema does is share the post documentary discussion, so if you were unable to make the event but want to hear the conversation that took place you haven’t missed your chance! (I seriously have so much to learn about how to utilize social media like Open Cinema does, it was pretty magical how much dialogue they were able to generate!). You can also read the conversation at #MyPrairieHome
When we have the courage to be vulnerable and be our authentic selves we inspire others to do the same #myprairiehome
— Inclusive VSAC (@InclusiveVSAC) March 27, 2014
Wanting more? You can go see Rae Spoon and Ivan Coyote’s “Gender Failure” show tonight (April 10th) in Victoria! Tickets at the door, 7pm, Victoria Event Centre.
