Against Me! frontwoman Laura Jane Grace has opened up about her gender transition in an interview with UK tabloid The Guardian.
The singer, formerly known as Tom Gabel, said living the life of a male in a punk band was frustrating.
“When you’re in a punk band you’re framed as an angry white male,” she said. “That’s you: angry; white; male. And you’re screaming at the top of your lungs, and you’re angry about this and that.”
“But you become a parody in some ways, and the more and more I saw that, the more and more frustrated I felt.”
Grace also revealed how worried she was about the fans’ reaction when she decided to announce her transition from man to woman in May.
“[The fans] were pretty high on the pecking order, just because there’s the very real worry of: ‘What if someone attacks me? What if I’m on stage and someone tries to do something to publicly humiliate me?’
“There’s that total fear, because I’ve been hit in the face with bottles in the past. So there’s that fear, for sure.”
Grace is currently taking hormones and undergoing electrolysis treatments to aid her transition from man to woman.
Fans can see how far her treatment has come when Against Me! play the Big Day Out around Australia in January.
