AGAINST ME with CRACKPUPPY and THE CLIKS at Yonge-Dundas Square, Friday (June 27), 8 pm, all ages. Free. worldpridetoronto.com.
Two years after Laura Jane Grace came out as trans in the pages of Rolling Stone, the Against Me! rocker is preparing for another rite of passage: her first time attending Pride.
Against Me! wrap up their current tour in support of their sixth album, Transgender Dysphoria Blues, at the Trans* Pride March during WorldPride, and the 33-year-old Florida native is psyched, to say the least.
“This’ll be my first Pride experience, so I’m really looking forward to it,” Grace tells NOW over the phone during a day off in Hamburg, Germany. “It’s the last show of our tour, too, so I want to hang hard.”
As the title suggests, Grace’s transition fuelled her songwriting for the album. Having recorded the previous two with producer Butch Vig for major label Sire/Warner, Grace wanted to take control for a couple of reasons: she could step up her game as a producer and show what she learned from Vig, as well as create a safe space to deal with her identity issues.
Once the songs moved into demo phase and the lyrics became discernibly about her identity, she had to bring the rest of Against Me! up to speed.
“At first I was reluctant to fess up to how autobiographical the stuff was and I tried to pawn it off like, ‘Oh this is a character,’ or ‘It’s a concept album,'” she recalls. “That was a short-lived charade.”
Ultimately, recording and touring Transgender Dysphoria Blues has been affirming not just on a personal or political level, but musically as well.
“I got into punk rock when I was 13. Every step along the way in your life there are moments when you re-examine and ask, ‘Is this still valid for me?'” she says. “As a songwriter, you keep pushing for truth and how you can adapt that to something that’s meaningful to other people on a political and a personal level, so it’s real and there’s real emotion behind it.”
Grace’s transition has helped increase media attention on trans issues and activism, but with that comes push-back. In May, Grace criticized Arcade Fire via Twitter for casting actor Andrew Garfield as a trans woman in the music video We Exist.
Angry fans pounced, some calling her “an ugly tranny” with no right to comment. After speaking with pianist Our Lady J, a consultant on the video who identifies with its character’s plight, Grace acknowledges the variety of gender experiences out there.
“If just one person identifies with the representation that’s happening in the video, then I’m all right with that,” she says.
However, she remains firm that the social media uproar indicates a wider problem.
“I stand by the statement that it’d be rad to see the role of a trans person go to a trans person. And the response I got for sending out that one tweet… was really representative of the fact that the video didn’t do much to educate anyone,” she says. “It was more of a pacifier in a way: we can watch this video and feel good about ourselves for being really progressive and open-minded.”
More positively, the reception to her coming out – and to the album – has renewed Grace’s relationship with her audience. Looking out into a crowd and seeing “the bro-iest of bros” belting out lyrics like “Does God bless your transsexual heart?” has left her awestruck.
“I had hit this wall where it was dysphoria-inducing to play music onstage when I felt a certain disconnect from the audience,” Grace says. “I didn’t know if the people out there really knew who I was or if they would accept me. I didn’t know who I was up there onstage any more. To get past that and have my worst doubts and fears squashed in that way has been totally affirming.
“It’s really fulfilled my idea of what punk rock could be at its best.”
music@nowtoronto.com
