Laura Jane Grace

Laura Jane Grace (born Thomas James Gabel; November 8, 1980) is an American musician, singer, and songwriter, best known as the founder, lead singer, songwriter, and rhythm guitarist of the punk rock band Against Me!. In addition to Against Me!, Grace fronts the band Laura Jane Grace & the Devouring Mothers, a solo project she started in 2016. Grace is notable for being one of the first highly visible punk rock musicians to publicly come out as transgender, which she did in May 2012. She released her first solo studio album since transitioning, Stay Alive, in 2020, followed by Hole in My Head in 2024.

Grace was born in Fort Benning, Georgia, the eldest child of United States Army Major Thomas Gabel and Bonnie Gabel (née Grace). Grace has a brother named Mark, who is six years younger. The family moved frequently between military bases due to their father's military career, living briefly in Fort Hood, Texas; Pennsylvania; Ohio; Germany; and at a NATO post in Naples, Italy, during the Gulf War. When she was 8 years old while living in Italy, Grace bought her first guitar from Sears mail order with money saved from mowing lawns. Grace initially took guitar lessons from an army officer's wife, but ended up teaching herself how to play.

When she was 12 years old, Grace's parents had an acrimonious divorce, which led to Grace and her brother moving with their mom from Naples, Italy – where their father remained – to Naples, Florida, to live with their maternal grandmother. In contrast to her time in Italy, Grace has said that moving to Florida was a difficult adjustment. Constantly bullied at school, Grace was drinking alcohol and taking drugs by age 13, substances which included pot, LSD, and cocaine. Grace was arrested for possession of marijuana at 14 and went on to struggle with addiction for years. Grace also regularly skipped school, eventually dropping out of high school.

Grace has suffered from depression, attributing her "first memorable bout" to feelings of gender dysphoria after her first sexual relationship. She also noted that depression occurs in both sides of her family, with her grandmother (also called Grace) being admitted to hospital regularly.

While in junior high school Grace became a fan of punk rock, attracted to the nihilistic and anarchistic ideals of the genre. At age 13, she played bass in her first band, known as both the Black Shadows and the Leather Dice as they had never agreed on a name. The band was formed with members of her youth group at church. Their first gigs were at church talent shows playing Nirvana and Pearl Jam covers.

An arrest at age 14 crystallized her aversion to authority: having gone to the beach on Independence Day 1995 to watch fireworks, "I walked up on the boardwalk, and a cop was like 'Hey, get off the boardwalk; you're blocking the flow of traffic'. So I turned around and got off, and he came up to me again and was like, 'Get off the boardwalk.' And I was like 'I'm off the boardwalk.'" Grace said she was then slammed into a police car, thrown face-first to the pavement, jumped on, hogtied, put in a holding cell, and not allowed to call her mother. She was charged with resisting arrest and battery, placed under house arrest for the summer, and required to do 180 hours of community service. Grace said her arrest and charges were all because "I was a dirty, grubby little punk kid with black spiky hair who hadn't washed his pants in a year." Grace's mother, who could ill afford to hire an attorney, hired one who took the case to court and lost. Grace was charged as an adult and ultimately convicted of both felonies. Grace later said the experience "changed my life. [It] politicized me." "I have an inherent distrust of mankind. I think authority and government base their power on violence. I refuse to recognize anyone's power over me."

After that incident, Grace came to identify with British anarcho-punk band Crass, calling them "to me, the best band to ever blend music and politics": "I felt like Crass' music legitimately made a change. They really backed up what they were doing. I saw that writing a song against something was just as valid as standing on a street corner holding a sign."

Grace befriended James Bowman when they met on their first day of freshman year at Naples High School; the two have been close ever since. "We were both punk rock kids with spiky hair and more belts than necessary", recalls Bowman. "We just hung out and smoked pot and did normal kid things." Grace's first tattoo—a Crass logo on the right ankle—was done by Bowman, though she later covered it up with a tattoo of the Rebel Alliance symbol because Bowman had been drunk and inked it sloppily.