Ava Val is a John Candy Award-winning comedian/musician/actress from Toronto. Her honest and insightful-yet-silly and spontaneous account of her transgender journey has turned heads across North America, earning her repeat appearances at renowned festivals including Just For Laughs, JFL Toronto and Vancouver, Off-JFL/Zoofest, and the Winnipeg, Halifax, and Arctic Comedy Festivals, among others.

Val's talents also earned her a writing role on the 30th season of This Hour Has 22 Minutes, a spot on season four of Roast Battle Canada, and an indelible appearance on Canada’s Got Talent. She is the first trans person to achieve several of these credits.

In addition to her numerous taped standup performances for CBC Gem, CraveTV, CTV, and CBC Radio’s Laugh Out Loud, she also has a new standup comedy special “So Brave” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKN_4pBKGt8), hosts the podcast “PodGis”, and was a lead cast member in season 3 of OutTV’s Drag Heals.

In this conversation, we discuss what makes comedy such a potent form of resistance to hatred, how it exposes and embarrasses the ignorance of the far right, and why transphobia is closeminded, normative bullshit rooted in an effort to safeguard a violently narrow notion of what constitutes being "at peace" with oneself.