Laura Jane Grace, the lead vocalist for the punk-rock band Against Me!, came out as transgender in 2012. Since then, she has been open and honest about her transition, including in a conversation with HuffPost Live on Monday.
Grace spoke with host Marc Lamont Hill about her new AOL original series "True Trans With Laura Jane Grace," and also addressed why her own coming out process was "complicated."
"It’s complicated because when I was younger, I had never heard terms like 'transgender' or 'transsexual' or anything like that. I was probably 14 [or] 15 when I first read about someone actually transitioning and knowing that was a reality," she said.
Alongside this lack of trans exposure in her early years, Grace's own coming out was further postponed as the band's popularity took off.
"I started playing in a band when I was 19 years old and started touring heavily, and that swept up a big chunk of my life and it was really easy for me to compartmentalize certain parts of myself and not think about certain things," Grace said. "Then it all built to a boiling point where I had to address what I was going through in order to continue to survive as a person."
When the punk rocker decided it was time for her to come out two years ago, she was met with both positive and negative reactions. She told Rolling Stone magazine in 2012 that coming out "completely ended" her relationship with her father. Her fan base, on the other hand, gave her an "overwhelming, humbling amount of support and understanding."
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