May the Best Cock Win

Ian Harvie walks onto the stage in Portland with the distinct confidence of a comic who has spent years warming up crowds for Margaret Cho, but this time he is the main event. He frames his transition as both a deeply personal journey and a goldmine of logistical absurdities. He doesn’t treat the details of his trans identity as a lecture topic; instead, he dives into the messy reality of it, like the minor panic of leaving a sex toy in his in-laws’ guest room or the slow, distressing realization that taking testosterone means he is going to go bald.\n\nFilmed at Revolution Hall in Portland, Oregon, the 2016 special premiered on NBC’s short-lived streaming platform Seeso before finding a broader life on digital audio and video services. At this point in his career, Harvie was gaining mainstream traction, largely thanks to a recurring acting role on Amazon’s acclaimed series Transparent. On stage, under the direction of Ryan Polito, Harvie leans heavily into his perspective on sex, masculinity, and the absurdities of anatomical plumbing. He riffs on the weirdness of prosthetic cock shopping and gay hunters, while openly admitting that the single thing he misses most about living as a woman is the relative comfort of the ladies’ room. The performance represents the first televised stand-up special by an openly transgender man.