Against Me! singer: Coming out to bandmates as trans ‘like drop-kicking them’
Laura Jane Grace, the singer of Against Me!, has opened up about coming out as transgender to her band.
The punk singer, who came out as trans in 2012, made the comments to the InsideTV podcast, while discussing her new documentary series, True Trans.
She said: “With my band I didn’t necessarily intend to come out to them at the point that I did.
“I had already come out to a couple people, and it was an eventuality.
“We were sitting in the studio talking about the record we were making, and I got frustrated because I couldn’t explain myself fully, and I just thought ‘well f**k it, here it goes’.
“I definitely felt at the time like I had drop-kicked everyone in the room. That wasn’t what they were expecting me to say.
“It definitely was a moment of shock, and I think it took everyone a second to process
“With my band, [they said] ‘this is information you’ve given me, and I’ll see you at practice tomorrow.’
“My guitarist James put it best when he said ‘really, the only change is pronouns’.”
The Against Me! singer last week released the first four episodes of an online web documentary about her transition to female.
The synopsis states: “No stranger to being different, Laura Jane Grace always felt like an outsider in the posh Florida suburb where she grew up.
“It was only in the rebellion of the punk scene and playing music that she found a home.
“After surviving years of struggle, things finally seemed to be taking off when her band inked its first major record deal. On the inside, though, Laura was buckling under the pressure of being someone she wasn’t.”
