Features Editor
Photo by Jordan Hoyle
Though she dubs herself “The Transgender Comedian,” Alison Grillo doesn’t like the “t” word.
“I don’t know what it is about the term [transgender], it just sort of makes me cringe,” Grillo said. “I just see myself as female, or becoming female, or even performing femininity. I don’t normally say, ‘Well I’m transgender. Hi how are you?’”
At the invitation of CMU’s Gay Straight Alliance (GSA), Grillo performed a 45-minute stand-up act at Baron’s GJ on Wednesday, April 23, as part of the group’s monthly WednesGAYS gathering.
“I bill myself as the transgender comedian out of practicality to be able to identify as a unique talent,” the New York City-based comic said.
Casey Sadahiro, President of GSA, tried to nab Grillo for an event last year, but “it wasn’t in the budget.” This year, he said, he “made it happen.”
“Hearing her talk about her experience is something the [Grand] Valley needed,” Sadahiro said of Grillo, who underwent sexual reassignment surgery almost seven years ago and touches heavily on gender and sexuality in her act. “We want to normalize that there are LGBT people in this area to tell them ‘You do have neighbors.’”
Aside from the obvious fact that Grillo has walked through this world as both a woman and a man, she has also identified herself as a fiction writer, newspaper reporter, professor and academic. She had her first experience with stand-up comedy as a young man studying economics at Drew University in her native New Jersey.
“I don’t really know what possessed me to do it,” she said of entering the college talent show where she performed her first stand-up act. “I wanted to prove that I could do something really splendid, and maybe I wanted to be the center of attention. And I was. I’ve always liked to make people laugh.”
Despite the “ego-boost” and on-campus praise she received from her first stand-up experience, Grillo never considered a career in comedy until recently. Instead, she went on to earn a Master’s degree in creative writing and a Ph.D. in English.
Still living as a man, Grillo was teaching English as an adjunct professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee when she said she “basically just showed up for class in a dress.”
Now in her late 40s, Grillo said she knew something was different about her even as a young child of five or six.
“It was simply a matter of picturing myself as a girl with long hair, wearing pearls, maybe a little pink sweater,” Grillo said. “I think I was about in kindergarten when I first started having those images of myself dressed like that, always from the waist up as if I were on television.”
Nearly seven years ago, several events came to head that caused Alison to make some major life changes: her novel, which she was certain would get published, wasn’t, her mother passed away and she had recently undergone the big transformation from male to female.
“I was sitting at a coffee house in San Francisco, working on what would be my third novel, and I was looking at the material, and I said, ‘I can’t do this anymore. I’m just too depressed, too weirded out from everything.’”
Shortly after, Grillo decided to seek the exhilaration she had felt while performing stand-up as a college student, a decision that gave her “a great excuse to move to New York.”
Grillo now performs primarily on college campuses and at events geared toward young people, like GSA’s WednesGAYS, which is held monthly at Baron’s GJ to connect GSA to other local organizations like One Colorado and the Western Colorado Aids Project.
A substantial crowd was present for Grillo’s 45-minute act last Wednesday, and the comedian played with audience members, asking questions and encouraging them in return.
“I’ve always been a playful comic,” said Grillo, who cites Jim Carrey, Tina Fey and Woody Allen as comedic influences. “I think that’s what comedians should do: crowd work, ask questions, kid them if they’re not laughing, stuff that proves that I’m aware the audience is present and I enjoy their company and I want to engage them.”
Since her first stand-up performance, Grillo’s act has changed substantially, from the observational musings of a sarcastic, sex-deprived college guy to the bold truths and edgy comments of a woman who has been through a lot.
For instance, speaking of her sexual reassignment surgery, Grillo joked to the audience that she “went from accounts payable to accounts receivable.”
Heidi Hess, Western Slope field organizer for One Colorado, was present at the event and was impressed by Grillo’s performance.
“Having someone transgender come in and be here and be herself was really great,” Hess said. “Anything like this, no matter what community you’re in, is like a drop of water that creates that ripple effect. People being out and being themselves makes a difference.”
Through comedy, Grillo hopes to make a difference too, in her life and in the lives of others, but like her act, she said, it’s a work in progress.
“I’m kind of halfway there, three quarters there,” she said. “I can’t say that I’m earning good money or supporting a family…I’m struggling, if you want to put it that way. But, I want to show a little nerve, show a little faith, show a little guts and stick this out as long as I can.”
cblackme@mavs.coloradomesa.edu
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