A True Trans Rebel Hero

I’ve never been one to look for a hero in the public spotlight, while their accomplishments are noteworthy, I’ve never aspired to be like them.  Never have I wanted to front a successful punk band and my dreams of playing pro-ball dropped off around the same time my interest in basketball.  They are completely unrelatable to me.  But today, I found a new hero in Laura Jane Grace. 

Last spring, we all sat surprised as Tom Gabel of Against Me! announced his decision to transition into a woman, into Laura Jane Grace, and on this spring day, I sat in my car crying reading about her journey.  Cosmopolitan (a magazine I’ve never read) published an article by Laura Jane Grace detailing her first year as a woman: her decision to transition, her struggles to tell her wife, and how it’s affect everything from her career to raising her young daughter.  

In my mind, there is no doubt that I am a woman in a woman’s body, so Laura Jane Grace is not my hero in that sense, but rather she’s found happiness.  She may have been a jerk in the past, she may not be your most favorite singer, hell, you may hate her, but I for one, am totally envious of that fact that she is the picture of happiness.  She’s not looking through life through rose colored glasses (her sex life, the loneliness of being a transsexual, and other issues are problems that she thinks about) but at the end of the day, Laura Jane Grace is finally who she is supposed to be, her dreams have come true: the ability to be herself freely and a loving supportive family behind her.  Who wouldn’t be envious of that kind of happiness?  

May we all one day have Laura Jane Grace’s happiness.