Laura Jane Grace is a well known out transgender woman, a successful musician, and activist. Grace came out at 31, which was a time that was far into her public career as a punk artist. Laura grew up in a military family, moved many times as a child, and came out as transgender after a long music career fronting the band Against Me! Having a heavily political background, after she found commercial success, Laura performed at a fundraiser for presidential nominee Bernie Sanders in 2020.

Notably, after the North Carolina “Bathroom Bill” was announced, which sought to prevent citizens from using public restrooms that match their gender expression and identity, Laura publicly burned her birth certificate at a North Carolina concert announcing, “Goodbye Gender!”

Much of Laura’s early work with Against Me!, as their main lyricist, features lyrics which now retrospectively exist as full on ‘self-outing’. The band’s 2014 album, Transgender Dysphoria Blues, is somewhat a self-insert but mainly is a concept album about a transgender sex worker. This album has many songs which exist as alternative punk trans anthems, including “True Trans Soul Rebel.” Her 2016 autobiography, Tranny, also documents much of her early experience of transness through journal entries, anecdotes, and explorations of song lyrics. Currently, Laura still works as a musician and is known as one of the first out transgender punk rockers of our era.