I spent my
adolescence trying to prove my love for punk to the boys who thought it wasn’t
for me. It started when I was twelve and wore a Ramones t-shirt to school. I bet she can’t even name one song! Already,
I was full of hurt and fear and anger; bullied ceaselessly since kindergarten,
now dealing with the loss of a close relative and the constant, looming
question of my sexuality. Like so many outcasts before me, I found solace in
the anger and frustration of rock music, in all its many forms.
Laura Jane
Grace, frontwoman of the punk band Against Me!, came out to the world in a 2012
Rolling Stone story titled, “The
Secret Life of Transgender Rocker Tom Gabel.” The article was cringey; it used
male pronouns and phrases like “becoming a woman.” Still, I felt a huge amount
of pride in her, this person whose art I had adored for the better part of a
decade, that she could be so brave. At that point, I still didn’t understand my
own identity, but I did understand that Against Me!’s music had always been
more for me than for the boys around the campfire.
I discovered
Against Me! when I was fifteen, sitting at the computer with my high school
boyfriend, illegally downloading individual songs from LimeWire. I had an
instant connection to the music, its blend of punk and folk, my two most
beloved genres. At that time, I was doing my best to be “not like other girls;”
still pretty and feminine, with long hair, dresses, and makeup, but supposedly
“cooler” than girls who cared about pop music and wore pink. I could not have
told you why at the time, but Against Me!’s rejection of all of society’s most
violently enforced norms resonated with me on a deep, queer, emotional level.
I secretly
loved a much more diverse array of musicians: Aqua, Britney Spears, Macy Gray.
My mom’s Jim Croce and John Denver CDs. Still, I knew that being open about my
predilection for the Spice Girls/Backstreet Boys would ruin my punk credibility,
so I kept it to myself. Rather than just sit back and enjoy bands like Pink
Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Mastodon, Husker Du, and The Clash, I had to learn
everything about them; every member’s name, every detail of every concert DVD;
every record they had ever released. I had to prove myself to the boys who
would question me; for girls, casual enjoyment of these bands was not allowed. Even
though rock/punk/metal were supposedly a place where gender norms were not so
rigidly enforced (see: men in makeup, long hair, tight pants), it seemed as if femininity
was being co-opted, not uplifted. No matter how much I knew, the unspoken rule
was still there: this music was for the boys who sang it loudly and drunkenly
at parties, not for me.
In 2009, my second
year of university, I found a group of female friends who were Against Me!
fans. I saw the band live for the first time with these girls; we stood at the
front, and I enjoyed using my tall, long-armed body to protect them from the mosh-pitters
all around us. I continued to struggle with my gender/sexuality, and to relate
more and more to Against Me!’s lyrics, which had been quietly influencing my
writing for years. They showed me how to be political, and taught me how to
think critically about the media I was consuming. They also showed me that there
is great beauty in weirdness, and that the oddest things are often the most
interesting.
The writing on Grace’s two most recent Against
Me! records are overtly, unapologetically queer. She has always written from a
place of intense vulnerability, and is way more punk than any punk who ever
called her a sellout. That’s healing, for people like me.
Joelle Barron lives and works on the traditional
territory of the Anishinaabe of Treaty Three. Their work has been published in The Fiddlehead, The New Quarterly, Plenitude
Magazine, SAD Magazine, and others.
Joelle is a doula, and coordinator of an LGBT2S youth group. Their book, Ritual Lights, is forthcoming with
Icehouse Press in Spring 2018.
photo from Wikipedia Commons
