Quotes from Laura Jane Grace

I've never had trouble talking and expressing my feelings.

I fear cops and have never felt the protection of them.

I'm just me and if me being honest about who I am and putting myself out there in that way makes connections with people and helps people out, that's just repaying the favor of music because that's what music does for me.

I think the hardest part for musicians is what a wide gulf of time there is between when you decide to sober up and when you have the ability to navigate being social and having relationships and being in a band and having friends while sober.

Musicians are kind of like pirates, you know? You have to be free to follow whatever your muse is, or wherever life is pulling you - especially if you aren't in, like, U2, and making millions and millions of dollars.

I felt more and more like I was putting on an act - like I was being shoved into this role of 'angry white man in a punk band.'

I was always taught by punk to think for yourself and to question authority. That's what I've always tried to do.

I turned to punk because I didn't fit in anywhere else.

I remember being really young - being 13 or 14 - when I first was really excited about punk rock as an idea, and I was like, 'Don't ever not be punk. Don't ever not be punk.' Telling that to myself, I guess it was like self-defense against the scary world around me.

Every artist has the song where they say, 'I wish I could have written a song as good as this,' but they don't feel like they've done it yet. It pushes you to evolve.

To me, the songs that I'm most thankful to have been a part of creating are the songs that are able to adapt and change over the years and that mean different things to you at different periods of time in your life.

I have gender dysphoria and body dysmorphia. I don't like to see pictures of myself.

If I want someone to recognize the gender identity I feel, I'd have to ask for that. I can't assume people will know how I'd like to be treated on their own.

At 20, I was married, working as an auto mechanic, and living in Gainesville. I was doing Against Me!, but it wasn't by any means a full-time gig.

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 had some real health complications with my HRT - hormone replacement therapy.

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, Minor Threat - all those bands that you get into when you're first getting into punk.

I was married for like seven, eight years. And then coming out of that I was like, 'Okay, now what? I guess I would like to date? That's a reasonable thing. I'm allowed to have that!'

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.

I've gotten to do some really amazing things, gone to some really amazing places, and just have some really unique experiences. And if I have one regret looking back it's that - not a regret even, because I think that's kind of labeling depression as something you can control - but I just wish I would have been able to enjoy it more fully.

When I was 19 or 20, the way I was an activist was by regularly meeting with groups, going to protests, and being there on the ground.

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

To know that the people who are singing along at your show actually have something in common with you and can identify with what you've gone through, makes the songs that much more meaningful to sing.

I never get to forget who I am, my gender identity.