Laura Jane Grace showed a crowd what she thought of her legally-assigned gender at the band’s North Carolina show last night by setting her birth certificate alight.
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Grace told the Washington Post on Sunday that Against Me! is hoping to raise awareness about laws like House Bill 2 which alienate the transgender community.
On Monday, Grace praised the boycott efforts of musicians like Springsteen, noting the attention the boycott drew to the legislation and calling it “an act of an ally”.
Early this year, Grace was encouraged to cancel the Durham show, but she refused by tweeting: “Hell no!…”
When Grace first affirmed Against Me! would play the concert as planned, she wrote on Twitter that she was “even more eager to play North Carolina “cause of the bill” and encouraged activist groups to attend the event in solidarity”.
‘They are not going to go away’. “But visibility is more important than ever; to go there and have the platform of a stage to stand on and speak your mind and represent yourself”. “No one would care if we canceled”, she told BuzzFeed, adding that she thinks of Springsteen and others who have boycotted the state as “allies”.
The lead singer and guitarist has been a voice for transgender issues since she came out in 2012, and she and her band Against Me! released the album Transgender Dysphoria Blues in 2014, drawn in part from her own experience growing up.
“An attack by a transgender person against another person in a bathroom has never been documented”, she said.
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“The bathroom part of this bill is just ridiculous”, Grace said, a sentiment shared by her fans in the audience.
