Robin Tran

The views and opinions expressed by speakers and presenters in connection with Art Restart are their own, and not an endorsement by the Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts and the UNC School of the Arts. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Robin Tran has been performing standup comedy for the past 11 years, but it is only in the last eight that she has been performing under the name Robin. Before her transition in 2015, she presented as male and used the name Robert. 

During the pandemic, she gained a sizeable and loyal following via TikTok, and in 2021 she was featured as one of the “New Faces” of the year by the influential Just for Laughs festival. In the last couple of years, she’s enjoyed some very prominent appearances on various TV and streaming platforms, including “Comedy Central Roast” and “Comedy Central Stand-Up Featuring.” Last year she also appeared on the Netflix show “That’s My Time With David Letterman.”

In this episode, Robin describes how she’s managed to cultivate and grow her career despite an industry that at first didn’t know what to do with her and explains why, when all is said and done, she may always remain “a pro-wrestling bad guy."

Choose a question below to begin exploring the interview:

• How was your decision to transition connected to your abiding love for pro-wrestling?
• One of the greatest satisfactions is getting a roomful of people to laugh, but what is it about the artform that really intrigues you, that made you want to dive into it feet first?
• Was there a performance that was the first time you presented as a woman onstage?
• There’s the coming out and then the actual transition. How did that journey affect the way you viewed your career?
• Let’s talk about guts because I think the art that you do seems like the most terrifying. Also, you chose to transition not only publicly, but you made jokes about it. Where have you found your reservoir of guts?
• What is it like doing comedy in today’s climate?
• What, if anything, would you like to see changed systemically so that the field as a whole is more welcoming to a broader range of people?
• What current or upcoming projects or gigs are you most excited about?

Pier Carlo: I read somewhere that your decision to transition was connected in some way to your abiding love for pro-wrestling.

Robin: Yes.

Pier Carlo: But you didn’t go into it in that interview, so I want to hear what the story is. And please keep in mind that I know next to nothing about wrestling.

Robin: Yeah, OK. I’m going to try to keep it most layman’s terms as possible, OK?

Pier Carlo: OK.

Robin: This is not going to make sense to some people, but ... . So, as we all know, wrestling is predetermined. When you’re watching wrestling as a wrestling nerd, you’re not only watching the product, but you’re watching it from the perspective of, how does the company see the character that they’re writing for?

There’s a wrestler that I really love. His name is Bryan Danielson, and he went by Daniel Bryan in the WWE. He’s the best wrestler in the world, and he was also the most popular wrestler at the time. But he would always be in these storylines where he wasn’t the main guy. I think it was because he was smaller, so the company just didn’t really get behind him.

There was a match where I had friends over, about 30 people. He did a fake retirement, and he came back. There was a match that was an hour long. You lose by getting eliminated over the top rope. We think he’s going to win or he’s going to make it towards the end, and then he gets eliminated towards the beginning of the match! And our hearts stopped. It was in Philadelphia, I remember. I was watching from home. The crowd booed the rest of the match. They were chanting, “We want refunds!” It was just this groundswell of support. It was a protest against the company itself.

And it really bothered me, inexplicably bothered me in a way that wrestling has never bothered me before. I started crying, and I was like, “I’m going to cancel the network.” This was the first real protest I’d ever done. Instead of protesting real atrocities in the world, I’m like, “I’m going to protest by not watching wrestling anymore.”

A few days later, my fiancé, they were like, “You’re never this bothered by it. What’s going on?” I didn’t even know what I meant at the time, but I started crying and I said, “They just don’t like him because he doesn’t look the way they want him to look.” When I said that, it hit me hard, but I didn’t know why. I think it got my brain swirling a bit about, “I don’t look the way people want me to look. What is this struggle with gender and everything?” 

The rest of the story I’ve told other places. I was in my car, and I listened to a girly song and started singing it instead of keeping it to myself. And that was when my whole life flashed before my eyes. This is the part of the story that I always share with people, and I always leave out the first part where the catalyst is a professional-wrestling storyline because it’s so inside-baseball. 

But I actually did tell Bryan Danielson this recently. 

Pier Carlo: No kidding!

Robin: Yeah. Ron Funches does a wrestling podcast. He had on Bryan Danielson on as a guest, and I actually got to tell him that him being eliminated from the Royal Rumble made me come out as transgender. [She laughs.]

Pier Carlo: What did he say?

Robin: He was just very touched. I mean, I think. It was all over audio. I’d like to think he was touched by it, but for all I know he could have been laughing behind my back. No, I’m kidding. I’m just trying to keep this light. Whenever there’s a comedian being interviewed for a podcast, I feel comedians can get very into interview mode and very serious. 

So that’s that story. I hope it’s a sufficient answer. I tried to keep it as layman as I could.

Pier Carlo: It was beautiful. And given that you’re my first standup-comic guest, I have no expectations about the tone of the interview.

Robin: Oh, yeah. Well, I do. It’s funny, because I was doing an interview for TV a few years back, and right before we went on the air, a producer in my ear went, “Don’t forget to bring the funny.” And I was like, “Oh, my God, I’m so glad somebody said that in my ear,” because I was ready to be like Plato philosopher about comedy. Then I started just being funny, and I was like, “Thank God, I don’t think anyone else got the memo.” 

That’s where that insecurity comes from, that I can get very geeky arrogant about standup.

Pier Carlo: Oh, yes, I like that! Well, speaking of geeky, I want to talk about the artform as an artform.

Robin: OK.

Pier Carlo: I’m guessing that, of course, one of the greatest satisfactions is getting a roomful of people to laugh, but what is it about the artform that really intrigues you, that made you want to dive into it feet first?

Robin: I think I heard somewhere a while back that we become literally a different person every seven years, so the reason why I originally started and what appealed to me is different from what it is now. Every few years it changes. 

When I was initially drawn to it, I think it was because my dad did comedy. He would do funny songs at weddings and stuff. The image of someone with a microphone making people laugh was so intriguing to me. It seemed like such a powerful thing. And watching the “Chris Rock: Bigger & Blacker” special made me laugh in a way that I didn’t even know was possible to laugh. I feel when you’re younger and you’re watching something funny and it makes you laugh so much that you can’t even breathe, I think it’s because we don’t really have the words yet to describe why something is funny. I think that’s the magic trick of comedy, to figure out why something is funny.

When I first started, it was for a very egotistical reason. And I hate to be a cliché. I started as Robert. I did standup comedy as a “guy,” and it was the typical, “I just want to vent, and I want girls to think I’m cool and I just want a girl to like me.” That was literally the only reason. I think I used it for a very egotistical reason, the power fantasy of standup and to live the lifestyle of a comedian, to do standup and then get a podcast and then have people cheering and all this stuff. 

Pier Carlo: Sounds like a male swagger kind of thing.

Robin: Yeah, yeah, that’s a good way of putting it. And I think what happened was, I met my partner doing standup — we’re still together after 11 years — and then I got really happy, and I didn’t really desire that part of standup as much anymore. I started changing. I had to change the way I looked at standup and go, “I still love this thing, but why?”

For a few years I wanted to just use it as therapy and use it to vent my frustrations and share about my vulnerabilities and to speak truth to power, all these different reasons I was doing it for. After a few years of doing that, I felt a real joylessness from it, and I was still really depressed when I did standup. I’ve been doing standup for 11 years now, and I would say that the first seven or eight years I didn’t really enjoy it. I enjoyed the actual stage time, but I hated the preparation for it, I hated waiting, and I think a lot of it was because I was so depressed. 

Then about three and a half years ago, when I finally got medicated for my bipolar and it went away, I started looking at standup completely differently than I ever had. And it’s that I just like to be silly, and I like to have this energy in the room where we can all be in this together. I used to have this “I’m a performer and they are the audience” kind of thing, and I would say around 2021 I kind of tore down that wall between performer and audience, and it’s now just, we’re all in this together. I think that’s such a great feeling.

In terms of getting laughs from the audience, it’s like a drug to get the laugh from the audience, but I don’t really crave it as much as I used to. Now what laughter from the audience indicates to me is that they understood my joke. If they laughed, that means they got it, and that to me is the success. I think what a lot of comedians don’t realize is that when a joke doesn’t work, a lot of people try to find excuses for it. It’s always, “Was the audience too sensitive? Was I too abrasive? Was this audience this or that?” It’s usually because they didn’t get it, because you didn’t make it clear enough. 

There is a structure to standup, and I love the structure of standup. It’s the same as a five-paragraph essay essentially, which is that the premise of the joke — which is like the thesis of an essay — is the most important part. If you have a premise that is tight and you hit that premise repeatedly, the audience will generally go along with it. You have to make that premise so great, and you have to make it look like it was something that you thought of on the spot. That’s the magic trick of comedy.

But my favorite moments are when I’m not doing standup, when I’m just with my partner or with my friends. I just see standup comedy as an artform where it’s almost like learning a magic trick. A magic trick looks like it’s easy, it looks like it took no work, but it was a lot of work. The magic is not that magic exists; going into the creation of the trick is where the magic is.

Pier Carlo: Was there a performance that was the first time you presented as a woman onstage?

Robin: Yeah. [She laughs.] This whole thing is a blur, but I remember there was a moment I came out on Facebook on, I think it was February 3rd in 2015. I had a show that night. It was called Harp Inn. It was a show at an Irish bar, and it’s one of those shows where the audience doesn’t even know there’s going to be standup. That’s how most standup is your first few years. A lot of my friends were going to be there. A lot of my friends were comedians who were going to be performing.

At that time, a lot of them had unfollowed me on Facebook because I was so annoying online, and I knew that they hadn’t seen my post. Also, I was at the point in my comedy where I just could not hide how I was feeling, and I could not hide what was on my mind. So, I went onstage, and I’m like, “Hey, guys, I’m not dressed up yet, and I want you to know — this is not a joke — that I realized today that I’m a woman and thought you guys should know. I don’t have any jokes yet, but I wanted to tell you guys so that I wouldn’t show up to an open mic next month in a skirt and you all go, ‘What the fuck!’”

I tried to make it a funny joke, but I think there were a lot of gasps. Then I just continued my set like I didn’t say any of that. I don’t remember the rest of the set, but I’m like [laughing], “Hey, Asian drivers, huh, people?” I think people didn’t remember the rest of my set either, but that was the beginning of it.

Pier Carlo: I believe there’s two steps in your journey, of course. There’s the coming out and then the actual transition. How did that journey affect the way you viewed your career?

Robin: Well, when I first came out, I feel it was the first thing I ever did for myself. It was the first thing I really did where I didn’t know how anyone was going to react to it. I didn’t have a plan. I just had this overwhelming feeling of, “Oh my God, if I am a girl, then my whole life makes sense essentially. I can’t turn this truth off in my own brain.” My fear of people leaving me or people not talking to me anymore was not as strong as my fear of living a lie. I was afraid the entire time. The alternative was just a lot scarier for me. I remember being like, “Oh, my God, my partner might leave me, my friends might stop talking to me, and my comedy career might be over.” But it was just, “I would rather just throw it all away so that I can live as myself, because there’s more potential for happiness here.”

Luckily for me, no one left. I’m still with my partner now. And my comedy career, it did take a hit at first, and then it skyrocketed after when I figured out how to … in wrestling, they call it “getting over”, which means getting the crowd on your side. I had to figure out how to get over without the help from the industry and just get over on my own basically. There was no plan.

Pier Carlo: What did that involve?

Robin: Well, so when I first came out, I was in Orange County. There were a lot of shows there at the Brea Improv, the Irvine Improv, and I was booked regularly there as Robert. But when I came out as trans, it was 2015 and it was in Huntington Beach, around that area where they had a lot of the anti-vaccine, anti-mask-mandate protests, just to give you an idea of who I was around. So I stopped getting booked around then. It wasn’t a malicious thing; it was more like, “We don’t really know what to do with you, and our audience doesn’t really know what to do with you.” I just didn’t get booked, so I had to figure out, how do I get as much noise as I can somewhere else where people have to start taking notice of me? 

There was a roast battle at the Comedy Store. That was when I saw an in. There would be celebrity judges every week. Anyone can sign up to do the roast battle. I figured if I’m the first transgender person to do roast battle, and I’m a great writer, and I’ve always loved roasting since I was a kid —

Pier Carlo: Oh, really?

Robin: Yeah, I love roasting maybe even more than standup comedy. I started just doing amazing roast battles and getting the attention of the celebrity judges. Comedy Central was in the audience one night, and that’s how I got on TV. I just went, “If people are not going to give me a chance, then I’m just going to make my own opportunities.”

Pier Carlo: Wow. Well, let’s talk about guts because I think the art that you do, to me personally, seems like the most terrifying. Also, you chose to transition, which can be a very private process, not only publicly but you made jokes about it. Where have you found your reservoir of guts?

Robin: I love this question. I see courage as a subjective thing. For instance, I am terrified of roller coasters, I am terrified of driving, I’m terrified of horror movies. If a horror movie is on in my apartment, I literally have to put on headphones, close my eyes and ears for 80% of the movie. I am afraid of everything. 

Pier Carlo: You know what’s funny is the three things you just mentioned are literally my three favorite things.

Robin: Yes, see, that’s what I mean, right? I don’t like hiking; I don’t like parallel parking. I’m terrified of almost everything in life. I’m terrified of the world, basically. I am not afraid of performing, even though I was at first. I would say the first two or three years of open mics I was doing, I would vomit in the bathroom before every set. But my need to express myself superseded that fear. And I think that’s just what it is.

This is off-topic, but whenever someone is like, “You should go on a roller coaster,” and I’m like, “I don’t like roller coasters,” they’re like, “Oh, you’re such, you’re so scared. You don’t wanna go on a roller coaster?” I’m like, “Well, why don’t you go on stage?” I always get this bitterness about it. Sharing about my life hasn’t ever really made me afraid.

In 2002, I finally got high-speed internet, and there were Xangas and live journals back then, these online diary-type things. I would share all my thoughts on these online Xanga journal things back in 2002, and I would overshare everything. This is when people were not doing that at all. Everyone at school was like, “What are you doing? This is inappropriate.” But to me, I felt the internet was this lifesaver for me. People hate the internet, but I love the internet because I’m a shy person. The fact that I can reach potentially a lot of people was very appealing to me. I can reach that many people from the comfort of my own home?

So I would always just share about my life. Live journal or Xanga. Even if no one really read it, I just liked having my thoughts out there in the world. It was how I’ve always wanted to express myself. I feel, 20 years later, this is how people communicate now. I just feel I’m really lucky that — I don’t know, I’m pretty autistic, so maybe the world has just caught up to my autism or something — everyone’s sharing things, and it’s like, “Oh, yeah, I’ve been doing this since before it was cool.” Not to be a hipster, but I just think that I don’t know how not to do that. 

Pier Carlo: I want to talk about what it’s like doing comedy in today’s climate. I’ll start by saying that I’ve set my Facebook settings such that they supposedly can’t target me based on my tastes, which means I get things that are widely inappropriate for me. One of them was an ad for a Tucker Carlson documentary about how PC culture is killing comedy.

Robin: Oh yeah, I know.

Pier Carlo: He has some comics on there who are bellyaching. I want to hear from you, what is it like doing comedy today? Do you find a lot more subjects are off-limits?

Robin: What’s funny about that documentary you’re talking about is I was on the roast of Whitney Cummings, and I am on the dais with two of those comics. And what’s really funny is that my set was objectively meaner than theirs. 

I love dark humor. I think that dark humor is my fetish. I don’t really have fetishes, but I think it’s the equivalent of a fetish. I’m drawn to dark humor. I think movies are too gratuitously violent and I think it’s too sexual, even though I don’t want to censor any of it. But I find a lot of things on TV to be so gruesome and I have to look away. But I think in place of that is my humor.

I think that my humor is maybe the equivalent, emotionally, of a slasher film, a horror film. The analogy I always think of is that people who like slasher films, they don’t like snuff films. They like horror films and fiction. What I like is when humor is fiction. Its darkness is, “This is just a joke; this is a work of fiction.” Even if you’re speaking truth, it’s a joke, essentially.

I think a lot of comedians nowadays, what they do — it’s a very sneaky thing they do — they will present a non-joke, and they will say, “People are offended by this joke,” and then everyone falls for this, which is so frustrating. What happens is, their fans go, “Yeah, people don’t like this joke,” and then other people that hate them go, “Well, this joke is offensive,” and I’m here going like, “No, he didn’t tell a joke. You guys are all arguing about this thing that’s not even a joke.”

I will defend the darkest joke in the world, not even morally, but just the attempt is fine for me. Also, I think that if you’re going to tell an offensive joke, then it’s OK for people to go, “Hey, I don’t like what you said.” That to me is free speech. If I’m going to say something terrible, what kind of asshole would I be to be like, “But you can’t tell me I can’t say it.” The point is that there are consequences to what you say. 

I think my issue with these guys is not that they tell dark jokes, it’s that they don’t tell jokes, and then when people don’t like them, they play the victim. The most frustrating thing to me is that they’ll say words that I agree with and then they won’t live up to those words. They’ll be like, “In comedy, there should be nothing off limits.” And I’m like, “Yeah, OK, I agree with that. But you’re not being dragged on Twitter for a joke; you’re being dragged on Twitter for an opinion you gave on a podcast or for a sexual assault you did. None of this has anything to do with a joke at all.”

I think there’s a lot of sneakiness to it, and I think everyone falls for it. People are so addicted to being mad.

Pier Carlo: Yeah, to outrage.

Robin: And I don’t want to judge that because I feel I am too. You have to constantly check yourself. There are people on Twitter that I hate, and I’ve muted them, and then, if I’m just in a mood, I will just go on their Twitter and read it to make myself mad. I think there’s something very addicting about this anger, and I have to constantly be like, “No, stop it. Stop, stop, stop. Don’t do that.”

People are addicted to the culture war. I have been on every side of the culture war, and I’ve been very addicted to it. My whole goal is to just take myself out of this culture war and remember that you’re supposed to be funny. So yeah, all this talk about cancel culture and stuff, what these guys are really saying is that they’re afraid. It’s just fear, right? If a comedian says something that people don’t like, what they’re really afraid of, they’re afraid of losing two things: They’re afraid of either losing money or reputation. And I think they’re more afraid of losing reputation than money. I think they don’t even realize this about themselves because cancel culture, if we’re talking about cancel culture in a monetary financial sense, the only way you can really get rid of that is to get rid of capitalism itself because cancel culture is just capitalism.

If you don’t have a sponsor, you can basically say whatever you want as a joke; it’s so protected under free speech. But if you are working for a company, you are working for Disney or something, then now you’re beholden to Disney. Then people can tweet at Disney and go, “Hey, you need to fire this person.” If you want to get rid of that, you’ve got to get rid of capitalism.

But what I think a lot of people are talking about isn’t that at all. If you hear what people talk about cancel culture and these comedians and everything, what they’re really saying is, “I gave an opinion online, and five people got mad at me.” They’re obsessed with being universally liked. They’re obsessed with it. They can’t take anyone not liking what they say. Instead of saying anything funny or interesting, they spend their whole time complaining about these people who don’t like them, and it becomes this symbiotic relationship back and forth. 

You know how I don’t like roller coasters and all this stuff, but I would say that my equivalent of a thrill is if I have a joke where I think the audience might hate me for saying this stuff. It’s like bungee-jumping for me. And by the way, I am scared, but it’s a fun thrill. Because the first time I have an offensive joke and I say it out loud, it’s not going to come out the way I want it to come out because I’m kind of scared. But then what happens is if you say the offensive joke and then it’s over and they laugh or they didn’t laugh but either way you got through it and they didn’t hate you and you’re not dead, then the next time you say it gets easier.

That’s what I wish more comedians did. I hate to say it — you can probably edit this part out — but grow some balls. Just get over it. People don’t like what you said? Get over it.

Pier Carlo: I think one thing we’ve learned in recent years is how toxic the world of comedy can be, particularly to women, and I’m guessing it might not be easier for trans women. I’m wondering what, if anything, would you like to see changed systemically so that the field as a whole is more welcoming to a broader range of people?

Robin: Yeah, this is a tough one for me to answer because I don’t know how to fix a systemic problem. I feel like I went through this really long period where I tried to fix the world in my brain. How do I fix systemic this or systemic that? It became this big hurdle, and I felt myself getting so stuck in trying to fix the big problems in the world. And I don’t think they’re unfixable; I just think I don’t have those answers.

See, I’m kind of avoiding answering this question because I feel it’s going to come off almost like Republican-y, but I really just —

Pier Carlo: [Laughing] I’m sure you’ve been called worse.

Robin: [She laughs.] Yeah, god, that’s very true. But what I realized in the end was the biggest obstacle I had to overcome was myself, and that’s going to sound really corny. By the way, I had to overcome a lot of obstacles: mental illness and gender, race, growing up poor, all this stuff. But not recognizing my own power, the power that we all have that we were born with, that we forget that we have because the world is so screwed up, and to tap into my own power … .

The chances that I am an Asian trans lesbian comedian who talked to David Letterman, if you told me that I would do that someday, I would call you crazy. And sometimes when I get high, I think to myself, “Am I really an Asian trans lesbian comedian who talked to David Letterman, or have I hallucinated my whole life? Am I in a mental institution somewhere, rocking back and forth, thinking that this is my life?”

But I don’t know, I feel like ... I don’t know. I mean, I try to tap into my own power, I try to lead by example, I try to remind myself that there are people who miss laughing. There are people who really miss laughing. There are people who are so sick of everyone arguing all the time, and it’s a perfect opportunity to swoop in and be the silly clown while everyone is fighting with each other and to mock the whole thing. Then if you can make people laugh, people will love you.

I know a lot of things that I learned when I was younger that fell by the wayside because I learned a lot about these systemic issues … and the systemic issues are valid. And some of the stuff that I’m going to say, there’s a lot of evidence that it doesn’t work in reality. But what I tell myself — and maybe it’s a delusion — is cream rises to the top. It doesn’t mean that I am where I think I should be it, it doesn’t mean that I don’t get held down, but I am very successful because of my talent. I remind myself that it is possible to get over through your own talent to get people on your side. 

I think I would like it if more people nowadays, trans people, empowered themselves more and stopped trying to appease people who hate them. Because there are people who love you, and you should talk to them more instead of trying to change the hearts and minds of people who hate you. Grow the community of people who love you and ignore those other people or mock them. Don’t engage and don’t argue with them and don’t try to change their minds. Make your own community, make your own show. You have the power to do that.

Pier Carlo: Finally, what current or upcoming projects or gigs are you most excited about?

Robin: I have a couple of things that I can’t disclose right now, but I am going to be doing my hour show for an entire month. And I’m really excited about that, to give it a theme. My whole life right now is spent getting ready for that. 

I can’t give away too much, but my thing, when it comes to preparation for shows, is not necessarily just to run the set or to memorize the material. A lot of prep work is inner work and it’s something that I think is the most important thing that comedians just don’t do as much. My fiancé gave me advice once. They told me that your full-time job is not comedy; your full-time job is your mental health, and if you could take care of your mental health, then you can do comedy for the rest of your life.

What I’ve been doing recently is, I’ve cut back on a lot of carbs and sugar and reduced my caffeine intake. I’ve reduced my marijuana use by 90% the past week. I’m starting to exercise again. It’s about keeping your mental health in check and being healthy and everything. Because I have an impulse, and I think a lot of people have this: When you get successful, you have this inner saboteur. You want to self-sabotage it. Everything that I’m doing is to not sabotage this thing that I’m excited to get, because I think my hour is very good. I’ve gotten it to a place where I essentially do comedy for myself. 

And the other thing I taped was — I told you before — the roast of Whitney Cummings. I think that’s coming out in May also. It is the meanest set I’ve ever done in my life. They’re going to edit this way down because — I didn’t know this until I got the tape back — you have to be onstage for seven minutes and I was onstage for 19 minutes, just burning the entire room down. It was so thrilling. And I realized that I just love to be a pro-wrestling bad guy.