Review: Comedian Jes Tom Talks Queer Love, Trans Identity, and the End of the World in Less Lonely

On the surface, a 75-minute stand-up comedy featuring witty, relatable, self-deprecating humor sounds fairly run-of-the-mill. While Jes Tom’s Less Lonely may share structural elements with similar shows, in terms of the actual content it is highly singular. Tom is a nonbinary trans comic who creates material from the trials and tribulations of taking testosterone, the pitfalls of polyamory, the complex contours of being a fifth-generation Asian American, and the endless embarrassments of queer sex. To many, this would be considered quite niche. 

Yet Tom suavely manages to bring the audience in on the joke, sprinkling in enough context or education where necessary — and then playfully roasting those in need of such additional information. Tom finds a perfect happy medium between relatability and deeply specific experiences. Much of what Tom discusses throughout the show are aspects of trans experiences that have yet to be given a spotlight. To me, this highlights how desperately the world is in need of more trans comics, and how many are likely much more deserving of stand-up specials than the never-ending litany of boring straight men who populate comedy clubs and streaming services (yes, that’s shade to Matt Rife, whom Tom likewise throws a subtweet at here). 

Directed by Em Weinstein, Less Lonely is themed around Tom’s search for love. Tom has an almost eager anticipation of the end of the world and is ready to die (as they say, they’re small and easy to kill, and they don’t want to go through all the effort of hunting zombies anyway), but passionately desires a great apocalypse love, someone to share the final moments in one romantic, erotic ecstasy. It’s a lot of pressure to put on a relationship, and unsurprisingly, it hasn’t led Tom to a smooth happily ever after. 

Over the course of the show, we hear about various relationships they’ve had, from their first kiss at Pride, to the time they dated another Asian-American, to their nonmonogamous relationship with a gynecologist (whom they watched get married to their wife over Twitch during the pandemic). Tom’s life, like many queer and trans people’s, has been complicated, and not just their love life. They narrate their years as a young lesbian, their time as an “elder queer,” their transition and nonbinary trans identity, and their newfound attraction to men. Or as they put it, their journey from a butch dom top lesbian to a femme sub bottom twink. 

In the funniest extended bit, Tom jokes about the changes in the way they are perceived differently within the gay community than they were in the lesbian community. The sex is different, the standards are lower, and the expectations are more intense: Tom now has to slay and be chic, things they never had to worry about as a lesbian. 

Though there are many jokes about romance and family, the vast majority of the show is about sex. Tom’s dry, snarky, deadpan wit thrives best in these extended jokes about sex — complete with playfully pantomiming everything from putting on a strap-on to holding a condom full of semen. In a meta moment they recognize the irony of a trans comic making so many “perverted” jokes about sex in our current political climate, but this is what makes the sexual humor more refreshing. Trans people should be allowed to talk about sex, and to joke about sex, without being called pedophiles and groomers. 

Part of what makes Less Lonely such a success is the audience. On the night that I attended the audience was mostly populated with queer and trans people. We got the jokes, we laughed along at the references to Grindr, glory holes, dress flannels, and tiny mustaches. This show is for the girls, the gays, and theys, and Jes Tom gives us everything we could want. They are confident and practiced, their material is tight, the show coheres thematically, and their delivery is spot-on. During the show, they create a space where queer and trans people can get together and laugh at the ridiculousness of our lives, where we can feel like our experiences are finally the ones getting talked about with nuance and in graphic detail, where we can laugh together instead of being left out or laughed at, and perhaps most importantly, a place where we can all feel a bit less lonely.