March 29, 2024

Alison Grillo used her comedic ability to entertain a room full of college students last Friday.
Transgender comedian Grillo spoke to a fairly full Post 95, discussing pieces of her life story interspersed with jokes that kept the audience continually laughing.
“Whenever I come to a new state, I feel like I’ve won the primary,” Grillo stated.
She began her performance by cracking a few jokes about the current presidential race.
“Some of my material is controversial, so I took off my Bernie Sanders pin,” Grillo said.
Grillo received her college education at Drew University. This is where she made her first appearance as a comedian. When the “cutest girl in school” came up to her applauding her act, Grillo dropped a beer on her foot.
“I did something crazy to get a laugh,” Grillo stated, shrugging.
Grillo grew up as a male, but transitioned to female soon after she began teaching college classes. When she first came into one of her classes wearing a dress, she asked the class if she looked fat.
One of the girls in the front row told her that she indeed did look fat.
“I’ll never forget her,” Grillo said, looking off into the distance. “D minus.”
Although Grillo’s act was filled with plenty of witty one-liners to keep the audience laughing, her overall message was something greater. Grillo discussed not only her experience as transgender, but also some of the issues that current students struggle with.
Grillo reinforced the idea that she didn’t want to be called courageous for her decisions. Instead, she wanted to be called “hot-looking.” In all seriousness, Grillo preferred someone like a fighter pilot to be called courageous, not her.
Grillo’s act concluded the Gender and Sexual Diversity Alliance’s week of Queerfest and Day of Silence. Grillo not only talked about her own experiences, but involved the crowd a lot as well, asking students about their own experiences abroad, for example.
Although the ice cream bar was a pretty tempting draw for some students, Grillo’s performance provided students a comfortable environment to listen to topics not normally expressed externally on Wittenberg’s campus. Grillo did indeed provide a crazy night of entertainment, and definitely got a lot of laughs.

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