Shawn Hitchins

Hitchins was born in Egypt, Ontario.[3] In 2000, Hitchins briefly attended an acting program at George Brown College.[4]

In 2005, Hitchins spent a summer performing in with the drag trio The B-Girlz in Provincetown, Massachusetts.[5]

In 2010, Hitchins appeared as a panelist on MTV (Canada) 1 Girl 5 Gays.

In 2011, Hitchins debuted his first one-man show called Survival of the Fiercest at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival where he made an offhand joke about the need for redheads to have a “Ginger Pride Walk.”[6] In 2013, he returned to the UK to host the Ginger Pride Walk in Edinburgh, Scotland which gained international media attention on BBC News,[7] The Guardian,[8] CNN,[9] Raidió Teilifís Éireann,[10] The Globe and Mail.[11]

In 2013, Hitchins debut his second one-man show called Ginger Nation at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.[12] The show recounts Hitchins' experience donating sperm to a lesbian couple as well as memories from adolescence, brushes with celebrity, and pride in his ginger hair. It received unprecedented media coverage[13] for the festival and the show was later brought to Canada, the United States.[13] In 2015, Ginger Nation received top hit at the 25th Atlantic Fringe Festival.[14] In 2016, Hitchins adapted the live show into a concert film, which screened at the 2017 InsideOut Film and Video Festival,[15] the 2017 Cucalorus Film Festival,[16] and the 2018 SF Indiefest.[17] Huffington Post described the film as "vastly entertaining."[17]

In 2017, Hitchins released his debut memoir A Brief History of Oversharing,[18] published by ECW Press.

In 2012, Hitchins welcomed a daughter after becoming a sperm donor for two close lesbian friends.[2]

• Hitchins, Shawn (2017). A Brief History of Oversharing: One Ginger's Anthology of Humiliation. ECW Press. ISBN 978-1770413269. (Humor)
• Hitchins, Shawn (2021). The Light Streamed Beneath It: A Memoir of Grief and Celebration. ECW Press. (Memoir)

• Official website