Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Have to admit I haven't paid much attention to Laura Jane Grace's transition, punk's not really my thing (these days!) but this is a fairly good article - supportive, non-judgementalish...

Against Me: Amazing Grace (http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/against-me-amazing-grace-20140206-322bs.html)
Sydney Morning Herald - by Peter Vincent

It is hard to imagine a much more challenging environment for a transgender woman than the posturing, bravado-soaked world of American punk rock.

For the male lead singer of a successful punk band to announce via Rolling Stone magazine he wanted to be known as a woman and had begun hormone replacement therapy - as Against Me! founder, singer and songwriter Laura Jane Grace did in 2012 - seems just about the gutsiest thing a person could do. The punk ethos personified, in a way.

Except that Grace's extraordinary journey - writ large on the band's sixth studio album, Transgender Dysphoria Blues - is more important than any narrative in the constructed existence of a rock star. Neither the decision to change or to keep playing music were optional, she chides us gently.

Read more (http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/against-me-amazing-grace-20140206-322bs.html)

I love her as a human being.   The music is just, umm, OK, I guess.   I usually like my punk rock from the 70s and 80s. 

I read the Rolling Stone article in (June?) 2012 when she just started her transition.  I have to say that article was a significant part of what sent me over the edge a few months later.  When I was reading it, I distinctly remember the little voice in my head that said, "What the hell are you waiting for?" That sh*t haunted me the entire summer.

I imagine she has had a fairly profound effect on a number of people, sounds like a great article.

Quote from: Jill F on February 09, 2014, 02:32:21 AM
I usually like my punk rock from the 70s and 80s. 

Yes please! ;)

Oh well, what's more punk rock, attitude-wise than transitioning, other than playing actual punk rock itself?

I kind of like raising the middle finger to those who deserve it best.  Or I could bludgeon them with my pink Stratocaster...

Not sure if this is relevant, I watched the Queen DVD, Days of Our Lives, last night, OK not punk. But I did reflect on the pain, rejection and horror that Freddy Mercury went through when he came out with AIDS. The hatred from the UK press and the lack of understanding for Gay men was terrible.

Have things changed?

I think they have.

OK I'm not a Gay guy but people are more understanding, in a world sense, I know the USA tends to be a last frontier at times, but but that a transgender woman can lead a band and not be vilified is a breakthrough. I don't like the music, but I'm damn proud of her.

I've been thinking about getting together a transgender band for quite awhile now

Call it whatever kinda Rock you feel like, as long as it rocks I don't care

I believe it is possible

Everyone has forgotten about Jayne(formerly Wayne) County & the Electric Chairs.Jayne transitioned in the 70s,the Electric Chairs were no where near as good as Against Me! & Laura Jane Grace.I still like punk rock and go to the Rebellion punk festival every year,the world's biggest punk rock festival in Blackpool.Wish I could still fit into drain pipe jeans!

Quote from: V M on February 09, 2014, 03:42:45 AM
I've been thinking about getting together a transgender band for quite awhile now

Let me know if you need a fiddle, mandolin, acoustic guitar, banjo and uke player  :)

Punk isn't my usual style, however I was very impressed with Laura Jane Grace's Rolling Stone article. She caught my attention, and I read every article about her. I went to see her in the Boston area when she did an acoustic tour last summer. She's excellent, it was really cool to watch her fans singing along with fists pumping the air! I actually cried, I was filled with emotion to see how she was able to transition and continue doing her music successfully. My own first try 20 years ago didn't have such positive results.

I'm happy to be living true to myself now, things are better this time.

Shana

Quote from: big kim on February 09, 2014, 03:50:36 AM
Everyone has forgotten about Jayne(formerly Wayne) County & the Electric Chairs.Jayne transitioned in the 70s,the Electric Chairs were no where near as good as Against Me! & Laura Jane Grace.I still like punk rock and go to the Rebellion punk festival every year,the world's biggest punk rock festival in Blackpool.Wish I could still fit into drain pipe jeans!

Jayne County was and still is a punk goddess!

Quote from: V M on February 09, 2014, 03:42:45 AM
I've been thinking about getting together a transgender band for quite awhile now

Call it whatever kinda Rock you feel like, as long as it rocks I don't care

I believe it is possible

I hear ya' VM. I've been toying around with that idea too for quite some time. I just can't find enough people that like the same kind of sound that I do such as dark riffs and lyrics and so heavy you can't breath. Plus I just wanna' have fun and most are looking for big contracts to be the next big thing.

Love Laura and Against Me! I first checked them out because of the Rolling Stone article in which she came out.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/the-secret-life-of-transgender-rocker-tom-gabel-20120531 (http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/the-secret-life-of-transgender-rocker-tom-gabel-20120531)

As it turned out, I loved the music as well as the girl behind it.

Laura's guts in facing this all publicly while maintaining her musical career really helped inspire me to face up to my dysphoria. I'm a singer/guitarist fronting a heavy metal band, so I found it very easy to relate to what Laura has been going through. She's definitely become a bit of a hero for me.

Quote from: Jess42 on March 02, 2014, 04:43:44 AM
I hear ya' VM. I've been toying around with that idea too for quite some time. I just can't find enough people that like the same kind of sound that I do such as dark riffs and lyrics and so heavy you can't breath. Plus I just wanna' have fun and most are looking for big contracts to be the next big thing.

Ooh, what kind of dark riffs & heaviness are we talking about? Oh, and just because I play in a metal band doesn't mean that's all I can do or am interested in! lol

Quote from: Ally_B on March 09, 2014, 06:11:38 AM
Ooh, what kind of dark riffs & heaviness are we talking about? Oh, and just because I play in a metal band doesn't mean that's all I can do or am interested in! lol

I definitely believe in the phrase, "keep it simple, stupid." Dark and heavy reminiscent of Sabbath with Ozzy and Tony Iommi's style, but different ya' know? Not really fast and insane but just oppressive and heavy feeling.

Quote from: Jess42 on March 09, 2014, 08:59:08 AM
I definitely believe in the phrase, "keep it simple, stupid." Dark and heavy reminiscent of Sabbath with Ozzy and Tony Iommi's style, but different ya' know? Not really fast and insane but just oppressive and heavy feeling.

Yr definitely speaking my language. I prefer my metal to be more moody and expressive rather than being speedy, tech wizard, shred sort of stuff. 95% of the time, that stuff bores me to tears!

Loooooove early Sabbath, too. I've even got an Epiphone version of the Iommi signature guitar... Couldn't afford the full Gibson version.. :-\ Not as big a fan of their later stuff (or much of Ozzy's solo stuff for that matter)... Not that it's bad, but it can't hold a candle to the early albums. Volume 4 is one of my favourite albums of all time! >:-)

Quote from: Ally_B on March 10, 2014, 02:13:28 AM
Yr definitely speaking my language. I prefer my metal to be more moody and expressive rather than being speedy, tech wizard, shred sort of stuff. 95% of the time, that stuff bores me to tears!

Loooooove early Sabbath, too. I've even got an Epiphone version of the Iommi signature guitar... Couldn't afford the full Gibson version.. :-\ Not as big a fan of their later stuff (or much of Ozzy's solo stuff for that matter)... Not that it's bad, but it can't hold a candle to the early albums. Volume 4 is one of my favourite albums of all time! >:-)

Why the sad face hon? I can afford Gibsons but would much rather have Epiphones. Believe me, when I walk into the local Guitar center it may take me a couple of hours to pick one that sounds right, feels comfortable and just all around looks good. They are cheap but really aren't cheaply made. My last SG I compared with a Gibson and the Epiphone blew it away. I got 4, 3 SGs  and one Les Paul but the Les Paul usually stays in the case unless I do some GNR stuff, which just sounds right. 1 stays in standard tuning, the other in Drop D and the other tuned down half a step. I hate stressing the strings all the time and the Les Paul I don't really play enough and will just tune it accordingly.

Sabbath without Ozzy? Was it really Sabbath at all. I love Ronnie James Dio but as Dio, not a part of Sabbath. As for Ozzy solo, Loved him with Randy Rhoads. Zak Wylde does way too many pinch harmonics for me when Randy would put them in just the right places.

Yeah slow for me sounds a lot more ominous than fast when it comes to metal even though I do listen to the faster screaming stuff. But I guess I'm more classic. 8)

Against Me is a band that popped up in one of my guitar magazine and I've yet to check them out but they are supposed to be transgender oriented. I've been forgetting to look them up on youtube but they may be worth checking out.

Quote from: Jess42 on March 10, 2014, 06:51:00 AM
Why the sad face hon? I can afford Gibsons but would much rather have Epiphones. Believe me, when I walk into the local Guitar center it may take me a couple of hours to pick one that sounds right, feels comfortable and just all around looks good. They are cheap but really aren't cheaply made. My last SG I compared with a Gibson and the Epiphone blew it away. I got 4, 3 SGs  and one Les Paul but the Les Paul usually stays in the case unless I do some GNR stuff, which just sounds right. 1 stays in standard tuning, the other in Drop D and the other tuned down half a step. I hate stressing the strings all the time and the Les Paul I don't really play enough and will just tune it accordingly.

Sabbath without Ozzy? Was it really Sabbath at all. I love Ronnie James Dio but as Dio, not a part of Sabbath. As for Ozzy solo, Loved him with Randy Rhoads. Zak Wylde does way too many pinch harmonics for me when Randy would put them in just the right places.

Yeah slow for me sounds a lot more ominous than fast when it comes to metal even though I do listen to the faster screaming stuff. But I guess I'm more classic. 8)

Against Me is a band that popped up in one of my guitar magazine and I've yet to check them out but they are supposed to be transgender oriented. I've been forgetting to look them up on youtube but they may be worth checking out.

The sad face, well, it was really just because I would've loved to have had the Gibson... or more, I would've preferred a vintage Gibson, but that's out of my range even now! lol But the Epiphone served me well for a long time. I still have it, but I recently upgraded to a Nash Jazzmaster which I adore. :)

The Epi was better than the Gibson? I know modern Gibsons are not all they are cracked up to be, but wow! I'm a bit of a moron when I comes to gear though, so I'm noting all this down!

Sabbath without Ozzy... Well, you could argue that Sabbath sans Ozzy was about as Sabbath as they were on Technical Ecstasy and Never Say Die. For me, Dio-Sabbath was kind of a percursor for Dio's solo career, similar kind of feeling to the music. Did enjoy the Heaven + Hell album, even if Mob Rules seemed a bit phoned in.

Totes on board w/ yr opinion on Ozzy solo though, Randy made the first two albums work and then afterward... His albums were patchy at best... And Zakk Wylde sucks. Yeah, he could play circles around me, but I don't care to listen to him.

Heh... My band alternates between the fast screaming stuff and the slow ominous stuff... Yes, I sing AND I scream my guts out. But I don't cheat and cup the mic like all the hip kids do these days. I'm old school like that. lol And besides, I'm much more into mood and atmosphere than I am into the aggressive side of it all.

I adore Against Me. They've only become heavily transgender oriented on the last album, Transgender Dysphoria Blues. Aside from that, Laura has only touched on the theme here and there in her songs, but the songs that are about it go back as far as 2002's Disco Before the Breakdown and Tonight We're Gonna Give It 35%.

There are at least two songs on 2005's Searching for a Former Clarity that are about it too, being the title track and Pretty Girls (The Mover). The title track being quite explicitly about dysphoria, but other than the lines :-

"Confessing childhood secrets,
of dressing up in women's clothes...
Compulsions you never knew the reasons to"

Laura cloaked the real meaning with more general references to decay and death. Most people actually took the song to be about someone who was dying of AIDS. It's one of their best and saddest songs, imo.

On 2007's New Wave, she got more direct in the closing track of the album, The Ocean -

"If I could have chosen, I would have been born a woman.
My mother once told me she would have named me Laura."

And in the rest of the stanza goes on to relate a fantasy about being happily married with children. Still, people didn't really seem to cotton on that this wasn't just something she'd pulled out of thin air. There's a few more references tucked away on the album (White Crosses) that followed, but AM! only REALLY started to explicitly utilise the transgender theme with the newest album.

Wow, did I just write all that... I think I MAY have crossed the line into becoming a fangirl! lol

When it comes to guitars I like the feel and sound more than the price or the name on the head. My little black Epi run the Gibson into the ground soundwise. I like Gibson, don't get me wrong but Epiphone is owned by Gibson and I really can't tell a difference other than the shape of the head and the name. Plus if I drop it, spill beer on it, break the neck or anything else that can happen at a gig it only costs $379 to replace instead of the $1200 for a Gibson

I will definitely check out Against Me, I'm somewhat of a dinosaur and either listen to liquid metal and I usually don't even pay attention to the name of the band, Ozzy'z boneyard or hair nation on the XM. As a matter of fact I think I'm going to go check them out and see.

Quote from: Ms Grace on February 09, 2014, 02:11:29 AM

It is hard to imagine a much more challenging environment for a transgender woman than the posturing, bravado-soaked world of American punk rock.

I actually think transitioning in the punk rock scene actually makes it a bit easier. I'm a product of the 80's/90's punk and goth scenes and have found it very open and accepting. Now if it were the hardcore scene, that would be a totally different story.