Ava Val gets bravery, but wonders why comedy can be so cowardly when it comes to trans lives

Ava Val is a comedian, actor, writer and musician based in Toronto. She’s made multiple appearances at Just For Laughs and The Halifax Comedy Festival, and recorded stand-up sets for CBC Gem, Crave TV, and CTV. She has a weekly podcast of her own called PodGis, which is a great place to get a taste of her high energy, clever comedy. Val released her debut special, So Brave, earlier in the year. The special coincided with what Val called her 3-year “hormoniversary,” or the third year she’d been taking hormones as part of an ongoing “mid-life crisis,” in her words: that “crisis” is, of course, the joyful but uncertain journey of trying to align one’s core gender identity with one’s outward gender presentation. In this conversation, we talk about how the trans community, and more specifically trans comedians, can equip themselves to contest and defy the hateful, ignorant transphobia that is surging alongside the rise of right populism. We also talk about why the theme of bravery has some connotations that aren’t particularly flattering, and the level of bravery required to stand on a stage and demand the attention of people who are there to laugh, but who also arrive, presumably, with some openness to the kind of comedic storytelling that challenges the audience as much as it amuses them. Val and I discuss what it means, in that moment of performance, to balance entertaining a crowd with being true to your sense of self and aware of your own vulnerability. I really respect Val’s radical honesty, which I told her the first time we spoke for the podcast. Now, with the special out, we were able to dig into the way she writes and structures the material, the relationship she has with the audience, and with comedy as a profession. I hope the conversation, like Val’s special, offers an access point for people that may not know about how awesome and original contemporary comedy in Canada can be, and especially for people that don’t yet have a sense of the ethics and politics of comedy that is deeply queer.