The Body Is Not Gender: Laura Jane Grace Of Against Me! Interviewed
Petra Davis , March 26th, 2014 08:44
http://thequietus.com/articles/14834-against-me-laura-jane-grace-interviewAgainst Me!'s Laura Jane Grace has penned an album of astonishingly intimate anthemic punk rock. Transgender Dysphoria Blues explores a perspective seldom seen in punk: that of a trans* woman. Here she talks to Petra Davis about creativity, femininity, and soul rebellion
In January of this year, Against Me! released their sixth album. For a band whose trajectory - from Fat Wreck Chords to Sire Warner and back again, via cries of 'sellout' - has seen so much controversy, it was received relatively quietly. Its subject matter - gender dysphoria, the pain and difficulty experienced by trans* people around their assigned gender - wrong-footed some critics. Despite the long history of challenging gender norms in punk, such a directly narrative approach to transgender has not been seen before.
And it is a tough listen. The death wish, self-harm and drug use are omnipresent. Grace is open about her experiences before and during transition, detailing the daily threat of rejection, humiliation and violence, and her rage at a society that insists on brutalising trans* people. It's not a simple story, a journey from repression to emancipation, marked by changes to a body perpetually under examination. The cover art depicts an excised breast, skin, gland, and flesh cut free, neatly squared off like nothing ever is. All of the meaning and desire and expectation that usually attach to it are not in themselves part of it. They are only what we bring to it. The body is not gender, this album argues. Listen and learn.
