The Here to Pee Tour Makes a Pit Stop in Provincetown
by Steve Desroches
Comedian Ren Q. Dawe was recently trimming his pubic hair and it didn’t go well. The more he attempted to fix it the stranger it looked. As a trans person in America these aren’t funny times, but as a comedian there is always a joke to be found. Looking at his pubic hair he was reminded of a certain dictator, not the one currently in the White House, but the big one from about 80 years ago. So, he named his pubic patch “Clitler.” Dawe thought that if the government begins to institute genital inspections for trans people, they’d see the resemblance and think that Dawe might be sympathetic to their cause based on the fascist shape of his bush.
These are indeed times where you have to laugh to keep from crying. And trans people are particularly the target of hate and discrimination as the Trump administration and the Republican Party spread lies and ignorance to frighten the populace in a scapegoat tactic that is unfortunately as old as time. This makes trans visibility and representation all the more important. It is hard to fear, or hate, someone when who they are is no longer abstract. Storytelling is powerful, especially when it’s a funny tale. And Dawe had an idea. Why not do an all-trans comedy tour and take it to states where anti-trans legislation has made it to committee? The problem is that very quickly the list of states who would qualify rose to 49, with a grand total of 847 individual bills filed so far in 2025. So, Dawe came up with the Here to Pee Tour featuring all trans and non-binary stand-up comics, which will visit all 50 states and the District of Columbia in an act of activism and entertainment. It comes to the Crown & Anchor this Monday evening.
“It’s difficult to get out of the house in the morning when you’re depressed and living under capitalism,” says Dawe. “Laughter is empowering. It’s probably the best way to deal with everything. Humor is known to be a really effective way to combat fascism.”
The tour kicked off in Dawe’s hometown of Boulder, Colorado, at the beginning of March and to date has played throughout the West, everywhere from Casper, Wyoming, to Missoula, Montana, to Albuquerque, New Mexico, before jumping east in April. To his knowledge there’s never been a comedy tour like this, both in its geographic scope as well as trans people being completely in charge. For a very long time in comedy LGBTQ people have been just a punchline on their own to many straight comics and audiences. Funny is funny, says Dawe, and of course anyone can tell a joke about LGBTQ people, but what exactly is the joke; a playful observation or just someone’s existence? Dawe and the rotating roster of comedians on the Here to Pee Tour definitely find humor in the absurd and the absurdity of the times, as well as making trans lives funny, shaking off any label of victimhood and controlling the narratives of their own lives. But they also poke fun at the very forces that seek to oppress them, which can at times get awkward as so far the tour has been anything but preaching to the choir as people from a variety of political and cultural backgrounds are coming to see the show, something that Dawe loves.
“We can attack the ideology without attacking the people,” says Dawe. “That people who are conservative or Republican feel that they are welcome and safe to come to the show is something I’m happy about, that I’m really proud of.”
As the tour chugs along to its wrap up in December with its final dates in Anchorage, Alaska, and Kailuna-Kona, Hawaii, it’s all being documented by filmmaker Jeff Stonic, who will also shoot during the Provincetown performance. Dawe is especially excited the tour will be the subject of an upcoming documentary as in and of itself its remarkable a tour like this exists. But what’s more is that the Here to Pee Tour is changing hearts and minds. Dawe and his fellow comedians hear after most every performance that someone now had a deeper understanding of trans people and what is going on in the country at the moment, progress for sure. As Dawe crisscrosses the United States he’s changing, too. The country is so much more nuanced and complicated than he originally thought and is inaccurately represented by the caricatures the media and we ourselves can draw of the people who inhabit this vast land. In short, Dawe says America is a beautiful country and his love for it grows with each performance.
“It’s a very unusual time to become a patriot as a trans person,” says Dawe. “But that is what this tour is doing to me.”
The Here to Pee Tour is at the Crown & Anchor, 247 Commercial St., on Monday, May 12 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets ($25) are available at the box office and online at onlyatthecrown.com. For more information call 508.487.1430.
