Photography by JUCO | Retouching by Anna Glen at Wet Noodle
The Moment: November 18, 1981: Joan Jett releases I Love Rock 'n' Roll, her first album to feature backing band the Blackhearts.
In a year when transgender visibility came into sharp focus, Laura Jane Grace emerged as a brazen, incendiary messiah. After coming out as a trans woman in a 2012 interview with Rolling Stone, the Against Me! singer channeled the fear and fury of her tumultuous journey into a definitive statement on the Florida punk band's latest album, Transgender Dysphoria Blues. Its title track is blunt and blistering, tackling transphobia head-on with the tragic chorus "You want them to see you / Like they see any other girl / They just see a faggot." Released on her own label, Total Treble, the record was widely acclaimed and helped land Grace a 10-part AOL docu-series, True Trans, in which she travels the country speaking with trans men and women about their experiences. If her lyrics often bleed like an open wound, Grace's struggle has only emboldened her. "I'm a rocker, and rock 'n' roll has a long history of smashing gender roles and pushing the cultural limits," Grace says.
"That's what I want to represent."
Photographed at the London NYC hotel on September 15, 2014
Styling by Michael Cook. Hair and Makeup: Angela DiCarlo. Leather Jacket and Pants by Tripp NYC available at Trash and Vaudeville, NYC
