A harrowing altercation in a Boulder bathroom gave rise to what would become the biggest comedy tour of Ren Q. Dawe’s career. He was supporting a friend at a downtown stand-up show when a group of college-aged young men began to corner him — a familiar and frightening scene for too many trans and queer people looking to live their lives in peace.
Dawe was able to keep the situation from escalating by taking shelter in a nearby stall, but other members of his community haven’t always been so lucky. Like 16-year-old Nex Benedict, whose high-profile death following an attack in an Oklahoma public school bathroom just one week earlier was still fresh on the minds of LGBTQ people and their allies across the country.
At this intersection of fear and grief, an idea began to grow.
“Ironically, I was more in danger just trying to pee than when I was on a stage talking about my body as a trans person,” Dawe tells Caribou Current on a recent call. “I thought, ’What if we [took a comedy tour] to all the states where it was actually illegal for me to even pee in public?’ Upon looking up that statistic, we realized it was close to 40 states at the time — now it’s 49 — that have at least proposed anti-trans bathroom legislation. I said, ‘Well, if it’s already close to 40, we might as well do all 50.”
That’s exactly what Dawe did. The resulting Here to Pee tour kicked off last March at the Rayback Collective in Boulder, winding through blue and red states alike before wrapping up in December with a final show in Hawaii. Proceeds from the traveling comedy showcase generated roughly $50,000 for homegrown LGBTQ advocacy nonprofits like Boulder-based Rocky Mountain Equality.
Now Dawe is being recognized after a history-making year as the first documented trans comedian to perform in all 50 states, with the Gunbarrel-based comedian snagging a nomination for a 2026 Queerties Award. The annual showcase presented by the titular online magazine highlights excellence in the LGBTQ community.
The 29-year-old former Nederland resident from West Virginia is nominated in the Comic category, alongside major stand-up stars like Tig Notaro, Hannah Einbinder, Caleb Hearon and more. The upcoming March 10 ceremony hosted by drag royalty Trixie Mattel takes place at the historic Avalon Hollywood in Los Angeles, streaming exclusively on WOW Presents Plus beginning March 19.
“I genuinely have no idea how it happened, but I am super honored to be a part of it,” Dawe says. “It’s really cool to even think I’d be in the same category, or even the same room, as all those people.”
Caribou Current caught up with Dawe ahead of the awards ceremony to talk about the honor of the nomination, the lessons of the tour and building queer community on the Front Range.
Editor’s Note: The following has been edited for length and clarity.
Congrats on the Queerty nomination. What does it feel like to be included among these other amazing comics?
I mean, it’s an honor to say the least. I know that sounds kitschy, but it’s true. A lot of these people I’ve looked up to growing up, before I ever did comedy, and also now as a comedian and a writer who is trying to take themselves a little bit more seriously in this field. It’s truly mind boggling.
I’m a big Star Trek nerd, right? My partner and I are watching the newest series that’s just come out, Starfleet Academy, which is very fun and hip and fresh. Now my husband looks over at me every single time, every single episode, because [fellow nominee] Tig Notaro is one of the main characters, and he’s just like: “You’re nominated for the same award as that person.” It’s so fun and cute and flattering, and it’s a shock every time he says it, even though he’s been saying it for weeks.
It is also a bit baffling. There’s certainly a good bit of imposter syndrome. I am the only person on that list that has not written for a major comedy network or had a special on a major streamer. I am, in some ways, deeply amateurish compared to them. Just to be considered to be on the same level for the same award within our community is massive.
Will you be traveling for the ceremony?
Yeah, I’ll be in L.A. March 10, which I’m very excited about. I’m also really excited because I got to make a connection with Harper Steele, who was previously one of the head writers for SNL, and one of the more prominent comedy writers for films in the last decade — she is also a trans icon. We made a connection this last year, and I was really fortunate to get to know her a little bit. On a whim, asked if she would be around to be my date, and she said yes.
I’m very excited to both get to spend time with my friend and also get to go with another queer comedy person I really love and respect, who also deserves some time on the red carpet. I think her contributions to the industry are somewhat understated, especially because she’s primarily been a writer more than she’s been a stand-up or an actor, so I’m really excited to get to share that space with her.
What was it like when you got the news? Put us in your shoes.
I got tagged on a story on Instagram from a friend who had seen me perform in the last year, and I was confused because I hadn’t received an email yet. I did later, but at that moment when I found out it really was just a friend on Instagram being like, “Oh my God.” For a good 30 minutes, I was convinced it must be a typo [laughs]. I thought they could not be referring to me, until I saw it was indeed my picture and my full name.
I was just genuinely baffled. It was really late at night. I was in bed with my husband, and we both just said “What?” I think probably about 20 times in the bewilderment of it. Then when I got the email and other people started tagging me the next day, I realized it was actually real and not a dream or something I had hallucinated.
This is obviously following a huge year for you with the Here to Pee tour. What was that experience like?
It was the most intense and emotional and exhausting and amazing thing I’ve ever done. It was entirely grassroots driven. We crowdfunded about $10,000 for operating expenses. We turned that into about $100,000 from ticket sales, and we donated pretty much half of that to nonprofits. We supported a bunch of queer businesses, and then we featured over 150 trans and gender non-conforming performers throughout the country.
We also struggled pretty intensely. A lot of our press releases were rejected. We couldn’t even run ads for the shows on the Meta platform because it was relating to trans content. We were shadow banned on other platforms as well because it was explicitly trans stuff. That was difficult, and it certainly affected our ticket sales, but not to the point that we couldn’t do it.
We sold out over half of our shows around the country, and still saw pretty good success with it. But that wasn’t without additional effort. I would send hundreds of emails to any LGBTQ support group or PFLAG organization — a gay D&D group, a gay men’s choir, just literally anyone I could find in the area. Between that and word of mouth, it went a long way, even though we didn’t get featured in a lot of articles and press on the tour itself until it was effectively finished.
Part of that feeds into my surprise at being nominated for this award. After battling censorship in a pretty direct way for an entire year of my life as a producer, as a performer and as a content creator, it was really a wonderful surprise and relief to be nominated for something on a much larger scale that is seen and acknowledged by a lot of people in our community.
What did the tour teach you about trans communities in other parts of the country?
I continue to be in awe of the sheer number of trans people, especially performers, who are doing this work and are not just visible, but quite literally amplified in their visibility around the country, especially in really conservative states. Queens walking in full face, in full drag, somewhere where they could be arrested for doing so, and acting fairly nonchalant about it, confident they were doing what they were meant to do, and they were doing the right thing by living so authentically. That was really impactful for me.
Outside of those performers, we had a lot of trans and queer attendees who were seeking community and coming to the shows, and it was so heartbreaking and heartwarming to hear from them. This last year, we saw literally over 1,000 anti-trans bills proposed through state legislatures, and about a third of them passed, and that has presented a lot of hurdles and challenges and obstacles for our community and people who are associated with it: parents, partners, loved ones and kids.
People are really struggling, and I was just really grateful that we were able to provide a little bit of a reprieve — a night of laughter, a moment of kind of real connection with folks. We were able to talk about the real stuff that’s going on, but not let it get the best of us. We were able to have the last laugh, if you will, and that was just probably one of the best things that I’ve ever done in my life.
I understand you lived in Nederland for a time. What was your experience of Ned?
It’s such a funky little place. I grew up in a small town in West Virginia called Shepherdstown, and so in some ways, being in Nederland made me feel at home, because it was a little town in the mountains where everybody kind of knew each other, and I got to know the community pretty intimately. I worked as a budtender and retailer [at IgadI] for three years through the pandemic. We were one of the only essential businesses that was allowed to operate the entire time, so I was often the only person someone may have spoken to in weeks.
That was before I really dove into comedy in a real way, and I experienced people kind of just needing a reprieve from the intensity of living through a plague and being able to come and buy some weed, you know? Just have a chat and share a joke and laugh a little bit. It really made a difference for people, and it really made a difference for me.
I started writing down little jokes. I started taking note of certain conversations that felt really absurd or uplifting — and Ned being Ned, there is certainly a lot of absurdity to be had in that place. I don’t know a whole lot of other budtenders who had a regular who just happened to be a pirate in a landlocked state. It’s just inherently absurd. Nobody’s questioning that this man fully identifies as a pirate. I loved that, and I just thought it was really quirky and really fun.
Someone actually just posted on Reddit who is looking for queer community in Nederland before they move this summer. What would you say to OP?
Dear OP: What’s really sad is we have zero gay bars in all of Boulder County, Nederland included. That being said, there’s some really wonderful services for queer people in the mountains. Rocky Mountain Equality is the premier LGBTQ advocacy organization in the state. They do a bunch of work up the mountains as well. There’s also Mountain Pride that does stuff closer to pride season.
But there are also just wonderful people to be involved with, even if we don’t have those queer spaces. There are queer people doing awesome work for other queer people. If you can’t find the queer spaces, then seek out the queer people doing the work, because then you’ll always have something to do. You’ll always have something in common.
I’ve made a lot of friends who are also queer and trans, as well as a lot more friends who are not necessarily like me or in my community, through service work and volunteering. Nederland is a very sweet and wonderful place, and I think people aren’t afraid to live authentically. I really would encourage OP to embrace that for themselves as well. You should be able to live openly and authentically and be able to hold your ground in that. Trans people belong everywhere they go, period. Don’t self police yourself out of believing that, even if there isn’t a space with our flag on it.
ON THE MIC: Here to Pee: Trans Day of Visibility show. 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 31, Denver Comedy Underground, 675 22nd St. $17.50
