For the past 10 years, Jordan Raskopoulos has been a staple of the Australian comedy scene. She’s a member of the very popular, award-winning comedy trio The Axis of Awesome, toured around the world, and appeared on TV and in film. And in a new video out today, she announced that she is a trans woman.
The Axis of Awesome is one of Australia’s most popular comedy groups, and features Raskopoulos, Lee Naimo and Benny Davis. Their parody song “4 Chords,” which combined 36 different pop songs featuring the same chord structure into one song, has over 27 million views on YouTube, and they’ve toured across the US, UK, Europe and Asia, in addition to their home country.
Raskopoulos didn’t lose any of her trademark sense of humor when she came out in a new video today. The video, titled “What Happened to Jordan’s Beard,” starts off with the comedian doing a voice over, talking about how ever since she shaved her beard, fans have been wondering why she did it and if/when the beard is coming back. 30 seconds into the video she appears on screen and gives the reason that the beard is gone, and why it’s never coming back. She’s transgender, or as she says, “That’s right, I’m a girl! I am transgender. I’m a woman, Harry,” slipping into a Hagrid impression.
She does get serious for a minute, talking about how gender dysphoria is something she’s dealt with ever since she was a kid, but she “learned early on to be ashamed of it and to keep it a secret.” That’s a common feeling among trans people, who are taught from an early age that we have to hide who we really are. She says that after a recent tour, she decided that if she wanted a happy life and a happy future, she would have to come out. Over the last year she’s been coming out to friends and family and starting her transition. In this video you can tell that she’s happy and excited to be able to publicly be herself.
At first she was afraid that coming out would mean an end for her comedy career, but after she met other trans entertainers like Laura Jane Grace and Lana Wachowski, her attitude changed. “Fuck that. I’m going to carry on doing what I love and I’m going to enjoy every minute of it,” she says in the video, “In fact, I think it’s really important that I do, because being trans does not mean that you need to give up on your life, or your friends, or your family, or your career or your achievements.” She’s also been writing about trans issues and culture under a pseudonym for the past year under the pseudonym Nicola Fierce.
Raskopoulos closes out the video by talking about her pronouns (she/her/hers), how her vocal range hasn’t changed (so her singing will be pretty much the same) and saying that the other members of the trio have been incredibly supportive. She also says that, while she has two new middle names (Nicola and Bridget), she’s keeping her first name, so she’ll still be going by Jordan Raskopoulos.
It makes me incredibly happy to see trans people being able to be themselves, and it makes me equally happy to see Rakopoulos talking about how excited she is to continue her career, life and goals as her new, happier self. In the video, she says, “I’m going to continue doing exactly what I was doing before and I’m going to be fucking awesome.” Congratulations, Jordan, we can’t wait to see just how fucking awesome your future is.
