Ian Harvie: Trans-forming comedy

Ian Harvie, the trans comedian and actor best known for playing Dale on Transparent, is slightly abashed to share his earliest transgender inklings.

"The first time it ever dawned on me that you might be able to change your gender was probably Tootsie," recalls Harvie, 50, who will do stand-up at the Punch Line four nights next week.

"I mean, it's not at all the same; Dustin Hoffman's character, an actor, was dressing in drag to get an acting job. But at the time, I had a massive crush on Jessica Lange who was his love interest. It made me wonder if all the girls I had crushes on at school might consider me if I could just morph into a guy."

Harvie's childhood attraction to show business never subsided, but he kept it under wraps for longer than his male gender identity and his attraction to women.

In 2002, Harvie, openly queer but taken by many to be a butch dyke, was working as a self-taught graphic designer in Portland, Maine when he received a postcard in the mail promoting a local comedy workshop taught by a Daily Show writer.

"I was randomly on that mailing list," he recalls. "But for some reason, I kept that card on my desk and kept looking at it. Since I was a kid, I'd always been a storyteller. I wanted to do it, but I was fucking scared."

The night before the workshop started, Harvie decided to give it a shot.

"It was like the best drug I ever took," he recalls. "The first time I really understood the structure and set-up of a joke, I felt totally jazzed and jacked up. It was all I thought about. I was constantly writing down premises."