A Laughing Matter
Transgender issues can often be a punchline in stand-up. But for gender non-conforming comedian ALOK, being in on the joke is the ultimate form of affirmation. Their routines challenge the gender binary and promote acceptance. It’s a serious topic, but ALOK never fails to make an audience laugh. “It’s the only way I’m able to survive in a world that is so profoundly inhospitable to me,” they told ELLE for Affirmed, our series exploring gender-affirming care. “Performance is a ritual that allows me to be witnessed, and it’s a ritual that allows me to translate and transmute all of the negativity into beauty.”
ALOK has written three books, started an initiative to de-gender the fashion industry, and performed stand-up in more than 40 countries. They are also the subject of ALOK, a short-film produced by Jodie Foster. Comedic creativity is their preferred method of gender-affirming care—and getting you to laugh is the added bonus. “I’m able to do that profound and healing act of emotional alchemy, taking all of the pain and the resentment and translating it into something more beautiful and light,” they say. “We have so much grief and trauma as trans and gender-nonconforming people, and there are very few spaces to feel the fullest extent of it.”
For ALOK, gender-affirming care is all about “creating a world where people of all genders cannot just survive, but thrive.” Through comedy, they hope to create “a world where trans laughter isn’t a rare and precious find, but the soundtrack of our lives.” Though, if you’ve seen ALOK’s set, you know laughter is never rare.
Self-expression was always a safe space for ALOK, who was born and raised in Texas. As a child of Malayali and Punjabi immigrant parents from Malaysia and India, ALOK remembers trying on dozens of colorful saris with their sister and mother before family dinner parties. “It was always a really beautiful moment when we got to wear our traditional garments, because sometimes it wasn’t safe for us to do that at school,” they say. As ALOK got older, style continued to play an integral role in their path to becoming the truest version of who they are. “Regrettably, one of the most controversial things I do on stage as a stand-up comic is be fashionable,” they say.
Comics tend to distance themselves from fashion in order to be relatable, ALOK explains. “But I’ve always felt that is just sexist,” they say. “What I’m trying to do is say that comedy is fashionable, and fashion is comedic.”
As a result, clothing has become part of the work they do on stage. “I don’t see fashion and glamour as distractions from comedic practice,” ALOK says. “I see them as enhancements.”
On the day of their ELLE interview, ALOK wore a dress from Deli-based brand NorBlack NorWhite with big sleeves and a wide skirt, which they say makes it extra fun to wear onstage. “It speaks, and it does things,” ALOK explains, demonstrating the dress’ ability to twirl with a big spin. “The fabric is in on the joke.”
One of their other favorite brands is Berlin-based designer GMBH, who crafted a custom dress from an old sari for ALOK. “It makes me feel so powerful, because I love taking old-school South Asian aesthetics, fabrics, textiles, and repurposing them,” they say. “Speaking about ending the gender binary [while performing] in this traditional sari fabric makes me feel like I’m part of an ancestry, like I’m something greater than myself.”
They add: “Whenever I’m able to wear what I want, it makes me feel most beautiful. I feel like I can show up as the fullest version of myself and create an altar to everything that I am, that I was, and that I will be.”
Beauty also plays an important role in ALOK’s act. “It shifts the actual composition of the words themselves, how they sound, how they land,” they say. “Beauty actually enhances words, [and] makes them live, quake, and vibrate.”
ALOK hires local, queer artists to do their makeup before performing a comedy routine. Being in full glam “pulls me in the pursuit of authenticity,” they explain. “The fundamental purpose of life is to be glamorous, to be seen and witnessed in it. It’s so silly that as humans we’ve lost and departed from the fundamental truth that we get to be seen and witnessed, and that we get to unfurl and bloom.”
They believe that looking in the mirror should be a celebration of self-respect. “Fabulosity is about self-love,” ALOK says. “I don’t really care about what other people see when they see me. I care about what I see when I see me. This is about making sure that I can continue to not just live, but thrive.”
Top photo by Eva Schwank.
This story is part of ELLE’s Affirmed series helmed by guest editor Tommy Dorfman that explores gender-affirming care in all its many forms. All stories were done with support from GLAAD, and all illustrations were done by Anshika Khullar, an Indian, nonbinary transgender artist.