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.
Laura Jane Grace
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 high for me; I can ride that.
I don't feel like I've ever been in mainstream society.
Growing up, my experience with transsexualism was nothing but shame. It was something very hidden, and dealt with very privately.
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 arresting charge.
I'm big on hair. I love Julianne Moore's hair. That's all I'd like: Julianne Moore hair.
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 still.
I like the idea that the body is a vessel, that it's not necessarily representative of the real you that's inside of it.
I really like dumb romantic comedies; that's the way I can turn my brain off and let go.
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.
Every musician out there wants to be judged on the merit of their songwriting, the merit of their performing abilities.
Any way that I can use my career or my platform to push along transgender visibility in the mainstream and society serves me on a personal level in that it will make day-to-day existence when I'm not doing this that much easier.
Chicago prides itself on being a mean city.
I fear cops and have never felt the protection of them.
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 don't want to be just that transgender performer or that transgender musical artist. I want to create songs and art and have those be judged on their merit alone.
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.
I turned to punk because I didn't fit in anywhere else.
Butch Vig was a true friend and really guided us, and it was such a fulfilling relationship with a person to make records with.
You know, sexism in the punk scene - or just in rock and roll in general - is so easily demonstrated by the amount of women or queer people that you see on stage versus the amount of cis males that you see on stage.
I was always taught by punk to think for yourself and to question authority. That's what I've always tried to do.
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.
I think that on paper we did make so many of the classic mistakes that a punk band makes, signing to a major label, getting in business with the wrong people, stuff like that.
I never get to forget who I am, my gender identity.
I feel self-conscious for even having met so many other band people and artists, I don't want to be that artist that is only able to talk about themselves and their own band. I don't want to be that person. I'd rather just be quiet than be that person.
I had gone from being married with a kid, two cars, garage, nice house in a nice neighborhood to all of it gone.
Eating's really important before getting tattooed. You need energy.
Trying to cause chaos - I think that's the way I create change.
Writing your memoir is inherently narcissistic.
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 look like a dude and feel like a dude, and it sucks. But eventually I'll flip, and I'll present as female.
I've never had trouble talking and expressing my feelings.
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.
As technology and science advances, I think the ability to alter yourself should be embraced.
A lot of people don't perceive me as female or trans, they just see some rocker.
As a trans person, I don't feel welcome in most public spaces. Especially now with Trump, I don't feel faith or recognize that we're protected by the government or administration.
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 grew up in Italy, so for me, Naples pizza is the only type of pizza that there really is.
My favorite video game when I was a kid was this game called 'Metroid' and the main character of 'Metroid' was Samus. Samus has this body armor suit, helmet and everything except at the end of the game, the helmet comes off and it was revealed that Samus was actually a woman.
Society doesn't portray transsexual people in a very positive light.
I was always attracted to women.
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.
Growing up, I never had a role model to show me that you can be trans and live a happy life. I hope that I can be that source of hope for someone out there who's struggling.
I'm totally fine with myself. It's the other people I run into out there who are so hung up on gender. The way it trips them up is their problem, not mine.
Being able to write about love through a trans lens is something that's not really represented when it comes to love songs.
I've always wanted to be a writer, and I've kept journals since I was eight years old.
I recognize that I'm in a band, and part of being in a band is doing interviews, and I do have a platform so I want to use that platform to talk about things that are real.
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.
People don't have to understand a language to understand the emotion and sentiment behind a song.
Striving to make music that empowers people as opposed to making them feel like they're being beaten down every single day is so important.
