Amber. Ashton. Kandis.

Amber Monroe was murdered this week. She was twenty. She was twenty fucking years old. 

Ashton O'Hara was also murdered this week. Ashton was a little older: 25.

Now there are reports of a third trans person murdered this week: Kandis Capri.  No word, as yet, on her age. I wouldn't want to bet she was older than thirty, though.

You wanna know why I'm doing this damn show? Because three trans people have been murdered in the US this week and every time you tell a joke which relies on 'but it turned out to be a tra**y!' as your punchline YOU LEGITIMISE THAT. Every time you tell a joke about how nasty and disgusting sex workers are YOU LEGITIMISE THEIR MISTREATMENT. Every time you treat rape like it's a fucking laughing matter YOU LEGITIMISE IT, and you leave the rapists in the room - and statistically there WILL be rapists in the room - chuckling in reassurance that it's just a bit of fun really.
And I can't stop ANY OF THAT. I can't stop the rapes, or the harassment, or the murders, and I can't even stop you yukking it up at your shit jokes about them. But I can tell you, as loudly and as angrily as I fucking can, that THAT SHIT IS NOT OKAY. That it ISN'T 'just bantz'. That it has fucking consequences. That it has a body count. That it leaves blood on your hands.

That's it. It's not enough. But that's it.

Amber Monroe.
Ashton O'Hara.
Kandis Capri.

Say their names.
And have a think about what was likely the last word they heard before they died.

Ready for Edinburgh?

HELL YEAH!

Howl had its first - and indeed only - full preview a week ago today at No Sleep 'Til Scotland, a day-long extravaganza of spoken word which also featured new stuff from Henry Raby, David Lee Morgan, Agnes Torok, Hannah Chutzpah, Matt McDonald, and Sophia Walker but mainly, for our purposes, gave me a chance to find out that this show does not suck. Those of you familiar with my creative process will be aware that I am never entirely convinced that anything I do doesn't suck until I actually do it, so you will know this is A Good Thing. Indeed, this is an excellent thing, as one of the first things I said at the first Scratch Club I went to way back when was that I wanted to develop an hour-long show with a strong through-line and tonal variety and this, people, is that show. I did it. I got there. Allow me, introverted self-deprecator that I habitually am, a little time and space to gloat.

You can find the show's listing on Broadway Baby, on the PBH Free Fringe website, and on The List's Edinburgh festival listings, where it appears next to an advert for The Ladyboys of Bangkok in an ironic juxtaposition of two very different modes of trans performance. It also appears in the PBH Free Fringe Big Blue Book. Oh yeah.

Shit just got real, baby.

And yes, I am straddling a chair like a dominatrix in an Eric Stanton cartoon in the above picture and yes, it is part of the show. Which bit? How? Why? Well, you're just going to have to come and see it to find out, aren't you...