I’ve finally found a way of making these events bearable.
INTRODUCTION
Diageo HQ, as you’d expect, has a real bar on site and the cocktails were proper class. Predictably, this led to me being pissed after the second and utterly shitfaced by the eighth. No wonder I laughed so much. It took five days to dry out. The nicest cocktail was Intersex on the Beach (phnarr), the pornstar martini a close second (too pie-eyed to see how that one got transed but I did manage to avoid the one with grapefruit in and therefore death). The fresh pizzas were also yummy and I can proudly boast to spilling a cocktail over several, too pissed to put my drink down while tearing a piece off. And that was near the beginning. Donations were being taken by a roving TIF, dressed as a cowboy, who never came near me. God knows what I would have done if she had? Probably have tipped my purse upside down to empty it. There were also donation points at the bar, so I think they probably did quite well.
The bloke doing the intro, from Outvertising*, informed us that Trans+ History Week is run by the community interest company Queer AF, which existed to ‘help trans people thrive in the media’. We were there to celebrate trans artistry. The event was also supported by the LGBTQIA+ network groups of Diageo (natch) and TikTok (who donated the raffle prizes, I think).
*An LGBT pressure group focussed on marketing.
DON ONE
Don One, compere for the evening, is a ‘butch’ lesbian and ‘drag king’. Her get-up involves pretending to have facial hair and wearing a boiler suit. Anyway Don One really whisked me back to those times spent in gay pubs in the nineties, listening to ‘the turn’ talk crap into a microphone. Firstly, she gave a shout out for all ‘the dolls’ in the room, we were here to protect them. And the ‘guys’ (always the afterthought). Adhering to what she’d been given on her cue card, she dutifully repeated we were there to celebrate ‘trans plus lives’. She joked that gay men weren’t in fashion any more (true), whereas currently there was a ‘lesbian renaissance’ (erm?) and then went onto namecheck a bunch of bisexuals (okay, makes sense). Pansexuals got a ribbing for being desperate, but she wasn’t pansexual-phobic though, as her girlfriend was one (geddit), this meant she was licking one every night (groan). In desperation, she said ‘beef curtains’ several times in her thick Brummie accent, which was way too early in the evening, even for an audience with access to a free bar.
CIARA O’CONNOR
O’Connor prefers to refer to himself as transsexual rather than transgender because it sounded more scandalous. Most of his material revolved around the fact of his gender identity, making the feeble I didn’t transition so that I could play sport joke, and jokes about the Catholic Church, which felt like they belonged to a different era. Very safe comedy but delivered with confidence.
CHARLIE CRAGGS
Craggs wanted to talk to us about his most viral ever reel posted on Instagram, when a conquest left a skid mark on his cream sofa! Craggs isn’t a slut and doesn’t want to be slut-shamed! Actually Craggs did give me a funny turn, especially the bit about not being ‘cock-hungry’ when he saw the cock of the skid-mark offender, boasting even he was ‘a bigger girl’.
BEN HODGE
Before Hodge started identifying as a gay trans man, she was a lesbian and, before that, bisexual. Therefore she was LGBT. Bad-dum-tish. (My retelling is more expert, believe me.)
Jokes about being a bottom, a bear, and having an extra hole to play with, ensued. Hodge is apparently in an open relationship with a ‘cis man’ and regularly goes on Grindr to catch STIs and get asked for dick pics. (Sigh.) She also featured in a Daily Mail article in February 2025 as her vlog about transitioning was to be shown to children as young as 11, part funded by the National Lottery.
Hodge grandly compared her relationship situation with her parents, to that of Chaz Bono and Cher, but unfortunately the only similarity is that both she and Chaz have transitioned into couches, not men.
HANNAH BRAGGINS
Braggins’ first joke was about sitting in period blood, which fell flat on its face. Next up, he wanted trans people to cheer (Yay!), and then cheer if they thought their ally was an egg (silence). This drew hysterical laughter from precisely one very drunk person (moi).
Braggins loves being called gender-affirming slurs, so much, in fact, that he made at least four jokes about it. These were all met with weak laughter, much of the audience ignoring him to continue conversations.
He wanted us to know that he was on spironolactone (without explaining it is a testosterone suppressant, but presumably a fair chunk of the audience did know). Spironolactone is a diuretic, so he was constantly plagued by urinary urgency and had to use the gents because the queues for the ladies was too long.
ALEX GIBBON
Gibbon’s latest show is called ‘Fat Femme Crippled’. Gibbon is non-verbal so doesn’t perform as such, instead mimes (rather lamely, it has to be said) to pre-recorded material. Some of the writing is funny but unfortunately the performance completely forgettable, as I didn’t even remember it until I sat down to write this piece.
DEE ALLUM
Trans means ‘across’ and Dee Allum’s very across with JK Rowling right now. Which actually was funny and he had some other good gags, particularly the one about visiting a fertility clinic to get his sperm stored because oestrogen was going to destroy his fertility. Hahahaha. (No, seriously, it was funny.)
Hangover
It’s really fascinating that the jokes that worked best, were the ones about the differences between the sexes, proving that everyone understands this and also that these observations are the basis of most comedy. Don One’s rallying cry at the end: ‘We’re here for the dolls (and the guys),’ was met with a huge whoop from the corporate Gen Zs.
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The Lies They Tell 
Great write up. Amazed quite frankly that you remembered so much after 8 cocktails 😆 Thanks.
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