'I want to rattle some things': Zaiba Baig on embracing her 'evil mode' in her new plays

Zaiba Baig is photographed after rehearsing for "The Begging Brown Bitch Plays" in Toronto, Friday, March 20, 2026.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Cole Burston

TORONTO — If “Sort Of” was about queer joy — which it only partially was, says co-creator Zaiba Baig — then her latest theatre project is about trans rage.

The two plays have transformed in the decade since Baig started working on them, shaped as much by a shifting sociopolitical landscape that increasingly vilifies transgender people as by radical changes in Baig’s professional profile.

There was an “undercurrent of sadness” woven into “Sort Of,” the CBC/HBO Max sitcom that was Baig’s breakout. But Baig got the sense that many people saw it only as a manifestation of trans joy — something that robbed the work of nuance, she said.

And because people associated Baig with Sabi, the character she portrayed on the show, it robbed Baig of nuance, too.

“It really sent me into my evil mode,” she said. “I am so many things. I’m angry and I’m sad and I can be vicious, you know?”

Baig took a year off after “Sort Of” wrapped to slow down and reconnect with friends and family. In that time, she said, she really embraced those more villainous feelings.

“That is so in response to what was going on in the world,” she said. “Because that’s 2024, which is not that long ago. And rights being taken away and things happening to lots of communities I care about, I’m not going to be sweet about it, you know?”

That anger is central to “Kainchee Lagaa + Jhooti: The Begging Brown Bitch Plays,” which are being staged as a double feature at Toronto’s Buddies in Bad Times Theatre from now until April 18.

Though she started working on “Kainchee Lagaa” in 2016 and “Jhooti” in 2019, they reached their final form in the last couple years.

Baig watched as several provinces introduced legislation limiting young people’s ability to be referred to by their preferred name and pronouns in school without parental consent, and Alberta went a step further by limiting trans kids’ access to gender-affirming health care.

Meanwhile, anti-immigrant sentiment was on the rise and Canada eventually moved to limit the number of people who could move to the country.

And to top it all off, Donald Trump was elected for a second term as U.S. president, compounding all of these issues south of the border.

But while Baig felt that the political world was slipping backwards, she moved forward — including by changing her name, something she’d thought about doing for a long time.

“When ‘Sort Of’ was starting to happen, I had this feeling of, ‘wait, I don’t know if this is the name I want to be introduced to the world,’” she said.

But she felt like she couldn’t delay the opportunity to make a TV show while she figured it all out.

“The thing I heard so much from other artists who were working on it and producers was like, ‘Things don’t get made this quickly, don’t get green lit this quickly. There’s something kind of special here,’” she said.

“And I believed that. I knew from the get that we were doing something different with the show.”

While she worked on “Sort Of,” she said, “some of those personal thoughts about myself, it’s not like they went away, they just went somewhere else so I could just focus on doing a job for a couple of years.”

But in the quiet year after the series ended and as she worked on “The Begging Brown Bitch Plays,” she reflected.

The scripts would be in print, and she wanted them to bear a name that felt like hers.

She made the announcement in a short Instagram video in January: “My old name is dead, please don’t ever use it anymore,” she said.

“I’m doing this because it really matters to be super trans right now, in the face of everything. I’m making this choice to continue to be visible and live deeply in my transness. So here I am.”

Baig also now uses the pronouns she/her and they/them interchangeably, when previously she only used they/them.

She said she’s been using the name privately for far longer than she has publicly. She delayed the announcement as long as she could because she doesn’t like to offer herself up for public consumption.

“It goes back to this conversation about what trans people owe the world and what kind of honesty we owe or how much transparency we owe,” she said.

Those questions are at the heart of “The Begging Brown Bitch Plays.”

Beyond their premises and the ideas that fuelled them, Baig is loath to discuss the particulars of either play. The characters in both stories lie, and unravelling the mystery of what’s true is part of the experience of seeing them.

The first, “Kainchee Lagaa,” is about two siblings who were separated as children; the second, “Jhooti” is a one-person play starring Baig, in which the character discusses her life.

“I think in my past work I kind of played into this idea of like, let me really tell the truth to get people to really see me and maybe love me. There’s a dark side to that as well, and these plays look at that,” she said.

“Why does anyone owe anyone any kind of truth? People lie to each other all the time, and there’s this kind of bizarre expectation on trans people — and in my experience, trans women in particular — to be super real about who you are and what body parts you have. It’s deeply invasive and messed up. And I think because of the times that we’re in, I want to rattle some things.”

Baig also wants to rattle a climate that relegates transgender people to the sidelines. To that end, she instituted a trans mentorship program that paired new people on the scene with experienced theatre workers.

It’s all intended to make it easier for trans people to break into the industry and shine, at a time when Baig said there’s resistance to centring those stories and some people wilfully misunderstand everything transgender people say and do.

“I know what the barriers are ahead of me, but that doesn’t mean that I stop making things or change my voice to neutralize myself. Like, there’s no way. They will hate you either way, so say whatever.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 1, 2026.

Nicole Thompson, The Canadian Press