Laura Jane Grace

“When I was fourteen years old, I got arrested for battering an officer and resisting arrest with violence. I was beat up by the cops and they charged me with that. There was no original arre...”

“Butch Vig was a true friend and really guided us, and it was such a fulfilling relationship with a person to make records with.”

“At 8, I got my first cassette, which was Def Leppard's 'Hysteria.'”

“Any doctor will tell you a great treatment for depression is exercise, physical exertion, that it really ups the dopamine in your brain, so that's what a show is. I play a show and that's a...”

“My first record I ever got was 'Full Moon Fever.' My dad gave me a copy when I was maybe nine years old or something. And I listened to the heck out of that record. I loved that record.”

“I moved to Naples, Florida, and by 15 I was into punk: Green Day, Rancid, NOFX, Operation Ivy. Along with the classic punk bands, like the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Misfits, Dead Kennedys,...”

“As an artist, you're just observing the world around you. So much is overwhelming and it's all so inescapable that it can't all speak to general cultural statements.”

“Fred Durst gave my first wife a tattoo of a star on the bottom of her foot when she was 14 years old in his trailer home. So that was my first introduction to Limp Bizkit.”

“What people don't realize when they talk about our lineup changes is that the original Against Me! broke up in 2001. It never recorded a full-length record.”

“My father was stationed in Italy in the military. I had no one to feed me what was cool, so I was into Guns N' Roses and New Kids on the Block and MC Hammer and a lot of '80s hair bands. But...”

“I grew up in Italy, so for me, Naples pizza is the only type of pizza that there really is.”

“In a perfect world, in my opinion, 'they,' 'them,' and 'theirs' would be the pronouns that everyone would use.”

“It's not like I came out in 'Rolling Stone' and all of a sudden I had a closet full of all the clothes I want.”

“Maybe you don't know who a person is just based on the way they dress. I know that's a really simple thing you're supposed to be taught really young, but sometimes you can forget.”

“Hormone replacement therapy does not change or affect your voice. And I have no problem with my voice: I really like my singing voice, I don't feel any dysphoria with my talking voice.”

“I grew up with a mother who always had every fashion magazine stacked up on the side of her bed. When I was really young, I'd lie in bed with her, and we'd look at the magazines.”

“For most people who are transitioning, surgery isn't really a financial reality. So to place these goals of 'in order to be happy with my body, I must do this thing' is really damaging to yo...”

“I'd never have imagined it when I was younger. A trans woman on the cover of 'Time?' That is unfathomable to the 15-year-old me.”

“That's one of the biggest fears a lot of trans people have if they decide to come out, that they're making themselves unlovable and that they'll never have a relationship again.”

“Going on tour for 10 years straight and playing 200-plus shows a year, you can't ever come back from that mentally. You're twisted in a weird way where you need that in order to be a person...”