Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Dustin Rowles | News | September 10, 2025
I was not familiar with comedian Jordan Jensen until yesterday, when she caused a stir on social media after a weirdly disastrous podcast interview with Stavros Halkias. I mostly know Halkias from Shane Gillis’ Tires, but that doesn’t necessarily make him Gillis-like (same goes for SNL newbie Veronika Slowikowska or even Thomas Haden-Church. Jobs in comedies are scarce). Still, I was pleasantly surprised by Halkias’ pushback, though I didn’t want to judge Jensen entirely on a single podcast interview.
So, I watched her Netflix special, which came out last night. One of her first jokes was, “I pitched this to a different streaming platform, and they said, ‘We love you. We just want you to either be gay or more feminine.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, me too.’” That’s kind of the vibe she gives off — that joke crossed with Nikki Glaser. There are a lot of sex jokes, a lot of gender-based humor, and more than a few jokes about … ***king her dad, which is … weird.
Aside from the Electra complex material, I didn’t find the special particularly objectionable. In fact, parts of it were quite funny, which made it all the more surprising that she opened her podcast appearance with Stavvy by tossing out some transphobic nonsense.
But that did give Halkias the perfect opportunity to coin my new favorite phrase: “Austin trans brain,” meaning you can’t stop thinking about trans issues even though it’s none of your business and doesn’t affect you in the least, which basically describes the Austin comedy scene right now.
so grateful for Stavvy immediately pushing back against this dogsh** pic.twitter.com/df0JksB57Z
— Carl Barks (@theCarlBarks) September 8, 2025
Here, Halkias keeps calling her out on her nonsense. At one point (not in this clip), he even says, “Now you’re clearly practicing for Rogan.” Sure enough, Joe Rogan’s podcast was her next stop.
you get to identify as a comic so what's the problem pic.twitter.com/zVm2MzHwMu
— Carl Barks (@theCarlBarks) September 8, 2025
And that really was the vibe she gave off — lots of “just asking questions” about identity issues. I don’t know the relationship between Halkias and Jensen, but maybe she assumed he was part of the Austin comedy scene and she was trying to cozy up to him? He’s not, although it’s amusing (and more on this in a post tomorrow) how many Austin comics are now trying to distance themselves from the Austin comedy scene, including even Shane Gillis. The backlash is picking up momentum.
Anyway, watch Jordan Jensen’s special or don’t. I don’t care. And I’m not about to say you shouldn’t because that’s tantamount to “cancelling her,” which would put a feather in her cap with a certain demographic that honestly would probably hate her special because it’s very crass feminist (but as Stavros points out, Jensen herself may be TERF-y). But Stavros Halkias has a new fan in me (despite how revolting in a Frank Reynolds sense his character is on Tires).
