Comedians often target their own lives as a source for the jokes they tell on stage, filleting themselves in front of countless strangers and putting the most sensitive details under the microscope — all for the sake of a laugh.
As a young up-and-coming comic, theatre freshman Nick Portier’s transparency on stage rivals even seasoned comedians as she reveals and pokes fun at her life as a transgender woman.
Portier said she was born a woman trapped in a man’s body. Though she has faced various obstacles in her personal life over the past year, Portier found solace in comedy when she began her stand-up career.
“I’ve kind of been telling jokes my whole life, or at least since middle school,” Portier said. “All my friends told me I was going to be a comedian, but the only reason they said that was because I was the only one allowed to watch Comedy Central, so I would just watch other comics and tell their jokes.”
Years later, Portier started writing her own material. She never fully pursued stand-up until she saw a local improvisation group in Baton Rouge, where her brother’s friend introduced the reality of being a comic.
A few weeks passed, and Portier decided to take the plunge into stand-up after one of her teachers told her she should be a comic because she was always making jokes in class. Along with the inspiration her teacher provided, knowing there was a place to learn and grow comedically was enough to get Portier on stage for the first time.
Her first experience performing was a five-minute set at The Station Sports Bar off College Drive, giving her an unparalleled rush that would become the inspiration for all future performances.
Though she was substantially unprepared for her first trial run as a comedian, Portier said the solitary laugh at the end of her first set was enough to continue and work to become a better comic with each appearance on stage.
In the beginning, she struggled with writing material an audience found refreshing and new but quickly realized honesty and an observance into her life sparked a source of content that was genuinely funny to the crowd.
“There were times earlier in my stand-up life where I wasn’t nearly as honest on stage, or I didn’t reveal as much about myself,” Portier said. “But the thing about being a young comedian is that anything you have to say about stuff that’s not you, someone older and wiser has said it and made it funnier.”
Portier started to focus the majority of her material on her own life and the experiences she has had as a young transgender woman.
It took a few sets for the crowd and even the other comics to realize Portier wasn’t joking about the way she identifies, but she was almost immediately accepted by fellow local comedians who even gave her a nickname: The Bearded Lady.
For example, she lightheartedly recalled the somewhat awkward conversations with her parents and girlfriend, explaining that she was now a woman — with a beard.
Portier said she first started to realize she was transgender in her junior year of high school when the question, “What would it be like to be a woman for a day?” became a daily self-observance of how she saw her future self.
“For close to three years now, every single day the vision of myself in the future is a woman, and it makes me way happier than I was when I imagined my future as a man,” Portier said.
Portier came out as transgender to her parents a week before her first headliner.
She was going to wait until the show to tell them on stage, where she felt most comfortable. But Portier said she was forced to tell them earlier than anticipated while asking them for money for therapy to sort through some of the feelings she was having.
Now, she said being on stage and discussing her life through her art is an almost medicinal experience in itself.
“I figured pretty early on through advice from other comics that the more honest you are with yourself and with the audience, the funnier you’re going to get and the better you’re going to get,” Portier said. “I go on stage, and it’s like therapy — but funny.”
Though she is still working on her voice as a comic, Portier’s honest and genuine approach has been popular with audiences.
Portier also said she would eventually love to appear as an entertainment feature at LGBT events where her particular style and material could be specifically relevant.
“Most of the time, I’m one of the favorite people to introduce of their the host because they can always make a pretty good joke about me,” Portier said.
You can reach Michael Tarver on Twitter @michael_T16.

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Haley Rowe-Kadow

Theater freshman, Nick Portier, uses her life as a transgender woman as inspiration in her stand up comedy.