# James Tom
**James Tom** (born 1990/1991), formerly known professionally as Jes Tom, is an American comedian, actor, and writer based in New York City, known for the [Off-Broadway](https://www.edgepedia.org/off-broadway) solo show *Less Lonely* and for appearing in the 2024 Netflix comedy special *Hannah Gadsby's Gender Agenda*.[1](https://fromthecomicscomic.com/2025/05/08/last-things-first-james-tom/) • [2](https://thequeerreview.com/2024/03/10/interview-jes-tom-on-hannah-gadsbys-gender-agenda-netflix-comedy-special/) Tom, who uses they/them pronouns in much of their earlier career coverage and now lives and performs as a gay trans man, builds comedy out of trans experience, queer dating, Asian American identity, and apocalypse anxiety.[1](https://fromthecomicscomic.com/2025/05/08/last-things-first-james-tom/) • [3](https://www.theatermania.com/news/review-comedian-jes-tom-talks-queer-love-trans-identity-and-the-end-of-the-world-in-less-lonely_1724282/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Full name | James Setsuo Tom, formerly Jes Tom; born 1990/1991[1](https://fromthecomicscomic.com/2025/05/08/last-things-first-james-tom/) |
| First stand-up set | 2011, at BrainWash, a café-bar-laundromat in their hometown of San Francisco[4](https://www.vice.com/en/article/jes-tom-netflix-dear-jes-how-are-you-so-hot/) |
| Solo show | *Less Lonely*, a 75-minute stand-up show at the Greenwich House Theater, directed by Em Weinstein and presented by Elliot Page[3](https://www.theatermania.com/news/review-comedian-jes-tom-talks-queer-love-trans-identity-and-the-end-of-the-world-in-less-lonely_1724282/) • [2](https://thequeerreview.com/2024/03/10/interview-jes-tom-on-hannah-gadsbys-gender-agenda-netflix-comedy-special/) |
| Netflix special | *Hannah Gadsby's Gender Agenda*, shot at Alexandra Palace in London, streaming from March 2024, with six other genderqueer comedians[2](https://thequeerreview.com/2024/03/10/interview-jes-tom-on-hannah-gadsbys-gender-agenda-netflix-comedy-special/) |
| TV writing | Story editor on season two of the Taika Waititi series *Our Flag Means Death* for HBO Max[5](https://www.broadwaycomedyclub.com/comedians/jes-tom/) |
| Recognition | New Face at the 2021 Just For Laughs Festival; named a "Comedian You Should and Will Know" by Vulture in 2021[5](https://www.broadwaycomedyclub.com/comedians/jes-tom/) • [2](https://thequeerreview.com/2024/03/10/interview-jes-tom-on-hannah-gadsbys-gender-agenda-netflix-comedy-special/) |
## Early life and start in comedy
Tom grew up in San Francisco and has described being queer and gender nonconforming from age 14. As a teenager they watched [Margaret Cho](https://www.edgepedia.org/margaret-cho) and [Wanda Sykes](https://www.edgepedia.org/wanda-sykes) on early YouTube, and Cho, a queer Asian American comedian also from San Francisco, became a formative influence; Tom has said that seeing Cho made a comedy career seem possible in a way that acting did not.[2](https://thequeerreview.com/2024/03/10/interview-jes-tom-on-hannah-gadsbys-gender-agenda-netflix-comedy-special/) After moving to New York, they chose stand-up over acting and improv, and their first performance came in 2011 at BrainWash in San Francisco.[2](https://thequeerreview.com/2024/03/10/interview-jes-tom-on-hannah-gadsbys-gender-agenda-netflix-comedy-special/) • [4](https://www.vice.com/en/article/jes-tom-netflix-dear-jes-how-are-you-so-hot/)
Their early sets took up non-binary identity, Asian American representation, working at what they called "an upscale sex toy store for people of Karen experience," and the apocalypse.[4](https://www.vice.com/en/article/jes-tom-netflix-dear-jes-how-are-you-so-hot/) In a 2017 FADER roundtable on political correctness, Tom said they made a large pivot after the 2016 election, moving from not identifying as a political comic to the position that anything coming from their point of view as a queer, trans person of color is inherently political, and that "there's no such thing" as a joke that is "just a joke."[6](https://www.thefader.com/2017/04/18/comedy-inclusive-interview-6-comedians-politics-identity)
## Screen and writing work
Tom's performing credits include the Hulu feature *Crush*, [HBO Max](https://www.edgepedia.org/hbo-max)'s *Love Life*, Adult Swim's *Tuca & Bertie*, and their own digital advice series *Dear Jes* for Netflix's The Most, an Instagram live show they hosted from February 2021.[5](https://www.broadwaycomedyclub.com/comedians/jes-tom/) • [4](https://www.vice.com/en/article/jes-tom-netflix-dear-jes-how-are-you-so-hot/) Their writing has been published by Reductress, Shondaland, and [Condé Nast](https://www.edgepedia.org/conde-nast)'s Them, and they wrote for the Audible/Broadway Video series *Hot White Heist*, produced by [Alan Cumming](https://www.edgepedia.org/alan-cumming); they later served as a story editor on season two of *Our Flag Means Death*.[5](https://www.broadwaycomedyclub.com/comedians/jes-tom/)
## Less Lonely
**Less Lonely** is Tom's solo show, developed continuously over roughly two years and performed Off-Broadway at the Greenwich House Theater through January 6, 2024, directed by Em Weinstein and presented by their friend [Elliot Page](https://www.edgepedia.org/elliot-page).[3](https://www.theatermania.com/news/review-comedian-jes-tom-talks-queer-love-trans-identity-and-the-end-of-the-world-in-less-lonely_1724282/) • [2](https://thequeerreview.com/2024/03/10/interview-jes-tom-on-hannah-gadsbys-gender-agenda-netflix-comedy-special/) The 75-minute show began as comedy about apocalypse romance in the age of COVID and evolved into material about gender transition, polyamory, being a fifth-generation Asian American, and Tom's move from identifying as a butch lesbian to attraction to men, a shift Tom jokes about as "Benjamin Buttoning" or a "dyke to fag pipeline."[3](https://www.theatermania.com/news/review-comedian-jes-tom-talks-queer-love-trans-identity-and-the-end-of-the-world-in-less-lonely_1724282/) • [7](https://www.interviewmagazine.com/comedy/jes-tom-tells-us-how-to-maneuver-the-dyke-to-fag-pipeline)
Tom has described the theater run as changing their performance style. Classically a deadpan, still stand-up comic, they trained with a fitness trainer to sustain seven shows a week and treated the body as an instrument in the theater sense, while deliberately bringing the direct audience address of stand-up into a theater space where spectators did not expect it.[7](https://www.interviewmagazine.com/comedy/jes-tom-tells-us-how-to-maneuver-the-dyke-to-fag-pipeline) Reviewers singled out the show's frank sexual humor and its effect of building a room where queer and trans audience members heard their own experiences discussed in detail.[3](https://www.theatermania.com/news/review-comedian-jes-tom-talks-queer-love-trans-identity-and-the-end-of-the-world-in-less-lonely_1724282/)
## Hannah Gadsby's Gender Agenda
In March 2024 Tom appeared in *Hannah Gadsby's Gender Agenda*, a Netflix comedy special hosted by [Hannah Gadsby](https://www.edgepedia.org/hannah-gadsby) and featuring seven genderqueer comedians, including Alok, Chloe Petts, DeAnne Smith, Krishna Istha, Asha Ward, and Mx. Dahlia Belle, filmed at [Alexandra Palace](https://www.edgepedia.org/alexandra-palace) in London.[2](https://thequeerreview.com/2024/03/10/interview-jes-tom-on-hannah-gadsbys-gender-agenda-netflix-comedy-special/) Tom described the cast as a cohort who spent a week together honing their acts, and described their own stage persona as "your new queer best frenemy," a classic setup-punchline comic whose material on gender and identity differs from other comics' mainly in that audiences notice it.[2](https://thequeerreview.com/2024/03/10/interview-jes-tom-on-hannah-gadsbys-gender-agenda-netflix-comedy-special/)
## Name and identity
Tom has performed and published under the name Jes Tom for most of their career and now goes by James Tom, joking in a 2025 interview about having told they/them pronoun jokes as far back as 2013 and describing himself as feeling like "the estranged father of the non-binary transmasc comedy community" while living and performing as a gay trans man.[1](https://fromthecomicscomic.com/2025/05/08/last-things-first-james-tom/) In interviews they have described the audience's reading of their gender shifting over the course of *Less Lonely*'s run, from surprise at revelations to recognition.[7](https://www.interviewmagazine.com/comedy/jes-tom-tells-us-how-to-maneuver-the-dyke-to-fag-pipeline)
## References
1. [Last Things First: James Tom, From The Comic's Comic (2025)](https://fromthecomicscomic.com/2025/05/08/last-things-first-james-tom/)
2. [Exclusive Interview: stand-up comic Jes Tom on Hannah Gadsby's Gender Agenda, The Queer Review (2024)](https://thequeerreview.com/2024/03/10/interview-jes-tom-on-hannah-gadsbys-gender-agenda-netflix-comedy-special/)
3. [Review: Comedian Jes Tom Talks Queer Love, Trans Identity, and the End of the World in Less Lonely, TheaterMania (2023)](https://www.theatermania.com/news/review-comedian-jes-tom-talks-queer-love-trans-identity-and-the-end-of-the-world-in-less-lonely_1724282/)
4. [Jes Tom, How Are You So Hot?, Vice (2021)](https://www.vice.com/en/article/jes-tom-netflix-dear-jes-how-are-you-so-hot/)
5. [Jes Tom bio, Broadway Comedy Club](https://www.broadwaycomedyclub.com/comedians/jes-tom/)
6. [Can Comedy Ever Be Truly Inclusive?, The FADER (2017)](https://www.thefader.com/2017/04/18/comedy-inclusive-interview-6-comedians-politics-identity)
7. [Jes Tom Tells Us How to Maneuver the "Dyke to Fag Pipeline", Interview Magazine (2024)](https://www.interviewmagazine.com/comedy/jes-tom-tells-us-how-to-maneuver-the-dyke-to-fag-pipeline)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Theater and dance › Stand-up comedy and comedians › American stand-up comedians, contemporary › Stand-up comedians born 1980 onward › Surnames N to Z*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 11, 2026; Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license