An Evening with Laura Jane Grace (Against Me!): The True Trans Soul Rebel’s Tale

From audience to ally, exploring gender identity and punk music

“You should have been a mother You should have been a wife You should have been gone from here years ago You should be living a different life.” (True Trans Soul Rebel, Against Me!)

Sung by Laura Jane Grace, underlined with a hooking beat and strumming bass, those lines sound like good old-fashioned punk.

However, there’s way more to the music than hits the ear: The trans lead singer recorded the song when she started to become the woman she was always supposed to be — and to tackle a long, challenging journey.

On one particular evening, with rare Against Me! concert tickets in my jeans pockets, I wanted to roar those lyrics together with Laura. I expected an evening filled with great punk rock music, some dancing followed by spilled beer, and maybe a new shirt from the merchandise stand.

However, it became a very intimate affair, one of those gigs when you feel super close to the band and the audience as well. I would get a first-hand confirmation of why punk still has to be political, gutsy, and personal: In this case, outspoken about transgender personas and trans rights.

Laura touched me so deeply that I wanted to learn everything about her. But let me start from the beginning.

The transformation of Laura Jane Grace

Founded in 1997, Against Me! has undergone lots of changes since they rode to their first gigs in a Buick Le Sabre, owned by lead singer Laura Jane Grace, whose engine exploded on tour. The old timer was replaced with a modest, but solid tour van plus the occasional rental truck, demo tapes became records, and songs like Trash Unreal climbed the charts.

Change became a constant, and transition a necessity.

Over the years, the Floridian band switched record labels and founded their own, released numerous albums and singles, exchanged band members, and played together with rock and punk icons like The Foo Fighters and Billy Talent.

In 2010, White Crosses became their most successful long player so far, reaching place 34 in the Billboard 200 Charts. An admirable yet non-surprising punk rock career: Against Me! was always brilliant.

Sure, their music style evolved but has been refined from the beginning, not as scruffy and garage-y as many other early punk bands. Bass and guitar-heavy songs, carried by Laura Jane Grace’s strong, raspy voice, and just melodic enough not to lose street-cred.

Laura has been a political musician since she was violently beaten up by the police at 14. Not surprisingly, she wrote tracks like White People for Peace or the pro-choice song White Crosses — establishing Against Me! as a band never shying away from politics. 2012 introduced a new theme though:

Laura Jane Grace publicly came out as a trans woman. Born a biological male, she had lived an unhappy life until then, experiencing tremendous gender dysphoria: not feeling at home in her own body.

Laura Jane Grace tried to bribe God or the Devil to turn her into a woman.

This is how she remembers her childhood in an interview with Rolling Stone. Disgusted with the masculine reflection in the mirror, she would use cross-dressing and drugs as coping mechanisms, before falling for a new world of nihilism and feistily lashing out: punk rock. In DAZED, she explained her fascination:

“I was very much into those British anarcho-peace-punk bands of the 1970s and early 1980s, which had a very strong female presence. That extended over to (…) the 1990s and the riot grrrl movement. Those were the examples of what I wanted to see in punk. I thought that was a space for me to exist in because I didn’t feel accepted in other places.”

After Against Me! joined the major label Warner Brothers, Grace swore to quit cross-dressing, and to accept her masculinity, no matter how wrong it felt. According to the lead singer, she still dropped hints in her lyrics though, most obvious in The Ocean from 2007:

“If I could have chosen, I would have been born a woman my mother once told me she would have named me Laura I would grow up to be strong and beautiful like her”

Maybe she yearned to be ”discovered”, to be seen as her true self? She had already met her wife — who fell in love with Laura’s male version and got pregnant quickly. According to Laura, her gender dysphoria hit hard again, until she got writer’s block and accepted transitioning as her only option. Finally, she began working on Transgender Dysphoria Blues, the most captivating Against Me! album, and came out to her bandmates.

“I felt more and more like I was putting on an act — like I was being shoved into this role of ‘angry white man in a punk band’. (…) I’m transgender, and I’m transitioning. (…) I felt like I drop-kicked them in the face.”

I still feel elevated about the way Laura Jane Grace’s story continued: She got tremendous support and protection from her bandmates. She was able to come out as full femme, which felt right and natural to her. And despite things not being easy, her wife stayed at her side, until they split up two years later —explicitly due to growing apart, not because of Laura coming out, as some media outlets liked to misrepresent.

My night with Against Me!

All things aligned perfectly: It was the first time in years that Against Me! played in my country again. Plus, the venue they had chosen was a small punk music club: connoisseurs refer to it as “the loudest sauna in town.” Intimate, cozy, and when heated up enough, with sweat and condensed water dripping from the ceiling.

Perfect for me — I prefer small clubs to concert halls. You feel closer to the band and more connected: There might be some eye contact with the artists, the bass reverberates easily without getting lost, and the crowd becomes one moving organism.

In 2015, only 3 years after Laura Jane Grace’s coming out, the media was still using her dead name, or referring to “trans punk rock.” I found it disrespectful. Especially since the lead singer admittedly still struggled with gender dysphoria that very same year. How must she have felt?

Actually, Against Me! was too big for this club. But maybe the atmosphere amongst selected supporters — no more than 400 would fit — was exactly what Laura Jane Grace and her colleagues had been looking for.

A beautiful raven on stage

Clad completely in black, the band walked onto the stage: guitarist James Bowman, bassist Inge Johansson (known from the hardcore band Refused), drummer Atom Willard (formerly with The Offspring, Social Distortion), plus Laura Jane Grace. She sported skinny jeans and a black sleeveless shirt with the bold slogan “Gender is Over”, revealing her well-toned arms and many black tattoos.

My eyes were fixated on the jet-black raven tattoo on her shoulder and neck, as well as the beginnings of a blacked-out lower arm. Once Laura had said she wanted to wipe the slate aka her old tattoos clean, and never stop to shape-shift. It made sense.

She looked like a raven herself: Dark, iridescent, mysterious, powerful, and confident. An amazon with long brunette hair and kohl-rimmed, glittering eyes. Wearing a guitar, and grabbing her mic. It was on.

Headlights flashed, and a bit of dry fog started to creep along on the floor. Against Me! played the best songs from Transgender Dysphoria Blues and 23 Live Sex Acts, their (back then) new albums. Laura literally lived songs like True Trans Soul Rebel, I was a Teenage Anarchist and Black Me Out. She and her band displayed so much passion that it spilled over effortlessly to the listening crowd — without jumping around like crazy. Space on stage was limited, but cozy enough for some swaying and occasional head bangs. Soon, Laura’s hair was sticking to her face. She didn’t care.

Before the concert, hardcore fans wondered whether Laura’s voice had changed much since her transition, involving hormonal therapy. Certainly, she sounded different, maybe a tiny bit less raspy, but still deep and super powerful, and with a new melodic quality. She had definitely more range now, and her vibrato was more noticeable. I loved her!

A tender moment

From the fan perspective, it was a bubbly, “happy-aggressy” pogo evening. However, no matter how fast-forward and punching the songs were, Laura Jane Grace lured me in with her intensity. During song breaks, she spoke with a soft voice, and at the end of the concert, I could almost feel her being calm and serene. I hoped she enjoyed this evening, just like the crowd and I, and had felt welcome and safe with us.

After the band had played an encore and left the stage with thundering applause, I could witness a tender moment between the lead singer and a fan in the first row. Obviously, Laura had spotted the teenager earlier, who seemed not to fit clearly within the too narrow gender binary. The teen beamed at her, and brushed her bob behind the ear (I can still remember the sparkly hair clips). Laura beamed back, sincerely, and the two talked for quite a while. The encounter ended with a tight embrace.

Forever a true trans soul activist

Against Me! did not record new studio albums after 2017 and announced a hiatus. Thus, I was lucky to have seen them play live. Laura Jane Grace, however, continued her personal and musical quest as a trans soul rebel.

With Tranny: Confessions of Punk Rock’s Most Infamous Sellout, she published her honest memoir, compiled from her journals since childhood. The brutal title, Laura said, was a self-defense, by putting the worst possible reactions already out there. She does not present a “happily ever after” fairytale, but the “whirlwind it was to come out and start transitioning, to get on hormones, to do that really fucking publicly.”

She started her solo career and released deeply personal albums.

In Stay Alive (2020), Laura ponders about discovering herself and struggles to feel at home in the new person she finally became. Jumping between energetic power songs, soft verbal strolls, political rants, and upbeat tunes paired with solemn-sarcastic lines, her debut album tells about the rollercoaster of her life during the transition.

Listening to At War With The Silverfish (2021), Laura sounds more grounded. She still feels different hearts beating in one chest, and being the target of never-ending questioning. Yet, she seems to have gained more capacity for external adventures, too: Like rock’n roll hangovers, or love (Lolo 13):

“Are you flirting? I’m still not certain You’re a real person Yet still I’m searching for… a girl in a city that I dreamed of”

Laura Jane Grace became a trans activist.

Not voluntarily, as she said, but due to the perceived need to educate people about gender and living as a trans person. She uses her music to shake people up and redefines generational schools of thought, publicly speaks at events, and is getting loud whenever transphobic shit hits the fan.

“(…) transgender visibility is so important — it’s about showing young people that it’s possible to have a happy adult life. I know how crushing it can be growing up in a small place (…), especially when you don’t have the support of your family.” (Dazed Digital)

It saddens me the singer grew up where “AIDS KILLS FAGS DEAD stickers on the trucks” were considered to be normal. And it delights me that she recently was awarded the Key to the City of Gainesville, her home of choice since the age of 18, where punk bands like Less than Jake, Hot Water Music, and Against Me! are celebrated.

Oh, Laura Jane Grace, you have come a long way: Coming out as a trans woman, at times when transitioning was not discussed publicly yet, in the masculine scene of punk music. You have always been and probably, always will be political — a teenage anarchist who has grown into the true trans soul activist I was so lucky to meet.