Trans On Tour

Coming to TX & LA via tornado alley and a hell of a start to 2026

On The Road Again: Texas & Louisiana

Tomorrow! March 12 → Austin, TX: The White Horse at 4:30pm in the inside stage for a trio set with Beth on fiddle and Nora on bass. Can’t wait to rip with them again, especially at a shindig thrown by my friends at Soggy Anvil Records!

Also tomorrow! March 12 → Austin, TX: Alienated Majesty at 6pm for a solo Lyrics as Poetry set with other incredible songwriters, put on by a zine that spotlights the power of lyrics. I’ve been prepping a real intimate set for this one, and last year when I played in the stacks everybody else’s sets made me cry. A welcome reprieve from the madness of the warmongering “art” festival happening in Austin right now, iykyk!

March 14 → Austin, TX: Tiny Minotaur at 7pm with Grady Drugg! We’re road doggin’ together again for a brief spell, and our first show of the run is at Austin’s best, weirdest LARPing bar for a Weird West night thanks to my pal/fellow songwriter Eryn Brothers. Come in costume ready to bard it out!

March 15 → Lafayette, LA: The Loose Caboose with Grady and Genuine Mustard! My FAVORITE dive bar/listening room in all of Louisiana is putting us up again. I cannot tell you how much I think about the last show I played here. A special spot in a town of deeply talented musicians who know how to fuckin’ party. Lafayette rules.

March 16 → New Orleans, LA: Okay Bar with Grady and Bruisey Peets! We’re hitting NOLA on a Monday to play with one of my favorite theatrical rockers on the scene, Bruisey Peets! Stoked to be back in the land of 2am boudin balls and fried chicken from that one gas station in town!

March 18 → Center Point, TX: Central Provisions with Grady! We’re playing a FREE show at this intimate, cozy spot in the heart of Hill Country, and real heads know how special and beautiful it is out there at this time of year. These folks are thoughtful about their programming and SXSW makes Austin a nightmare, so why not ditch the city for a night of singing amidst the bluebonnets?

March 19 → Houston, TX: Anderson Fair with Grady and Matt Harlan! After over a decade of living in Texas, I am finally pleased to say I’m playing in Houston at last, and at one of the most legendary listening rooms in the country to boot! We’ll be opening for Matt Harlan, who’s a pretty beloved songwriter in town — he was in “For the Sake of the Song” with Lyle Lovett and Guy Clark. Don’t know when I’m gonna be playing in Houston again so yall might wanna turn out for this one!

March 20 → San Antonio, TX: The Lonesome Rose with Paisley Fields, Garrett T. Capps, and Forrest VanTuyl! Ending my TX/LA run with my debut at The Lonesome Rose, a venue so fucking good I almost moved to San Antonio instead of Minnesota. Paisley is such a fun queer performer, Forrest is on tour from Washington, and Garrett is doing something weird to blow off steam from releasing his incredible new album of SATX greats, so I’m pretty sure this is about to be a real barn burner!

I’m writing to you from a treehouse of an apartment, a cozy spot in Kansas City (on the Kansas side of the line) that my friend Al offers to me for free whenever I’m coming through town. Al is a demon of a fiddle player in KC punkgrass band True Lions with Fritz Hutchison, and we all met at the Kerrville Folk Fest at some point. There’s a beautiful code in the DIY musician community that says: if I have a space and I can offer it, I’m gonna offer it. It’s because of so, so many fellow musicians that when when I go on tour now, I am mostly staying in rooms and on couches for free. A beautiful gift I am thrilled to offer in return if I can whenever folks come through Minneapolis.

Last night, I pulled into Kansas on the heels of a tornado warning. Tornado season has expanded its edges in the last few years: what used to be a threat in the warmer months of May has, due to climate change, bled into March and even the latter parts of February. If you’re not from the United States, you may not have encountered tornadoes before. They happen on every continent except Antarctica, but they happen the most in the midwestern plains of the United States. Last year saw some of the most violent tornadoes in one year since 2013: towers of destruction that drove deep scars into Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa. Two of them I barely dodged while once again driving to Texas, and it was only thanks to Little Girlfriend playing storm watcher that I was able to wait one out in an RV laundry room with a bunch of strangers and a few dogs.

Kansans and Oklahomans may look at “tornado warning” and feel more chill about it — a warning is not, after all, a formed threat — but I never get used to it. The last hour of driving was spent hunched over my steering wheel, watching hot pink lines cut the fabric of the sky in half and hoping they didn’t decide to strike me instead.

A warm, cozy, safe spot to stay doesn’t just matter to me because my wallet is lean after two months of little work, or because the weather is so terrifying, or because it’s nice to sleep somewhere owned by a friend. It also matters because being trans on the road is complicated, and only gets more so. Part of the problem is that I don’t look like much of a girl anymore — at least, not to Southerners. Since starting HRT in September, I’ve got a hint of a mustache forming on my upper lip and hairs beginning to grow on my chin and neck. My face is changing shape. I’ve been working out at the queer gym in Minneapolis twice a week all winter, so my clothes fit different. In the Midwest, this isn’t so much of a problem — the Twin Cities is home to the biggest trans community in the country, at 1.2% of the total adult population, and what midwestern cis woman doesn’t have a mustache and wear baggy flannel? But down here in Kansas, the state government recently revoked drivers licenses from trans people. Arkansas and Louisiana have their own anti-trans bills, and Oklahoma has never been trans-friendly. Once I hit Texas, I’ll need to be careful about which bathrooms I use, because government-owned ones (library bathrooms, public park bathrooms, the fucking bathrooms at Barton Springs) are regulated based on your “biological sex at birth.” I have no idea who’s been charged with ripping off our pants or peeking under our skirts to determine which “biological sex” we are, but I have no intention of finding out.

I’ll need to be a little more careful at my shows in Texas, too. SB 12 went into effect as of March 18. I once delivered personal testimony and laid my body on the floor of the Texas State Capitol at a die-in to protest SB 12, a bill that bans “sexually oriented performances” in the “presence of minors or on public property.” With the painted mustache portion of my shows and my frank storytelling about my transness, I am essentially engaging in drag every time I perform. I should be fine at the bars, but the bookstores and general stores I’m playing… I’m not so sure about how those’ll go. Luckily they’re all programmed and run by allies. Here’s to hoping.

Then there’s the state of my body right now. Because of the absolute hell that me and my state have been through in the last few months, my nervous system is shot already. I’m behind on everything. I’m scatterbrained, unable to remember dates or simple tasks and constantly leaving things behind wherever I go. I try to get on camera to make “video content” and start weeping, unable to bear the thought of having to once again be so fucking perceived on the internet. It feels violent, in a way it hasn’t before. I’m late and forgetful and clumsy and terrified. Time barrels on and I’m gripping the sides of my wooden rollercoaster, praying to god that it holds.

I type all of that while our country bombs Iran, bombs Ecuador, starves Cuba, expedites climate change, continues to detain and deport neighbors from my home, funds genocides, strips workers of our rights, starves and maims and murders children.

Another clap of thunder, just now. The storms are starting again.

Touring can be brutal, for anyone. It’s harder for the marginalized among us. The complications, the vulnerabilities, the money, the risks. But the road is also where I do my best thinking. It’s where I’ve written so many songs, read so many audiobooks, worked through so much hard stuff to get to the other side. When it comes down to it, I’m grateful to be touring again. In the driver’s seat, I feel capable. I feel ready in a way I don’t when I’m at home, watching the snow fall and knowing all that looms before me. When you’re driving, you can only do what you can do.

Speaking of, I’ve gotta start driving again if I wanna beat this new storm, get through the Dallas traffic, drive down one of the most dangerous stretches of I35, and make it to Austin in time to beat the Austin traffic, too. Another friend-owned space awaits me, safe and cozy. My friend Montie is waiting with tea. My friend Lindsey is hosting a clothing swap tonight. My friend Nora is gonna practice for our set tomorrow with me. My girlfriend is checking the weather constantly, ready to play storm watcher again — I couldn’t make any of this drive without her careful assessments.

I hope I see you out there somewhere, friend. I hope you’re keeping your chin up. Nothing can be so bad when there are cozy places in every corner of the world, waiting to show you care and rest, even as the storms rattle the windowpanes.

Till then, in solidarity.