Unconditional Love.

This Friday sees the release of Shape Shift With Me, the highly anticipated seventh album from Florida punk band Against Me! If you follow me on Twitter, or if you just know me in general  you will know how excited I am for it. I've pre ordered two copies of the Vinyl, the CD and the accompanying merch. My hype level was through the roof. I anxiously awaited every single song reveal, I've even gone as far as to get tickets for a few days on their U.K Tour (Although I will be giving some away very soon).

I'm sure quite a lot of you by now have at least some passing knowledge of the bands lead singer Laura Jane Grace who came out as trans in 2012. Never shy to speak her mind, she has become and inspiration for quite a number of trans people. All this is documented on other blogs however, so why am I telling you all of this? Why am I so incredibly excited to get that album in my hands on the 16th? Because whether the band know it or not they have saved me more times than I care to remember, and that started all the way back in the mid 2000's

By around 2004 I was beginning to get some idea of who I was as a person, although I still had no idea why I felt so uncomfortable in my skin I knew one thing. I really disliked the world around me. I didn't think people were somehow lesser than me, or that I was the only 'smart' one but I did feel like the world was an unjust and scary place. I had begun shall we say 'experimenting' with my identity, I felt like I was some sort of energetic and righteous rebel telling the system where to shove it......looking back I was doing none of that with my MP3 player and school uniform but in my own mind I was like some warrior, it was me against the world. I begun listening to more punk, and in particular I really liked what the Americans were offering. Bands like Anti-Flag, NOFX and their ilk were favourites, in and among that there was this other band. A band which played harder and screamed louder than all the rest. That band was Against Me!

I'll admit I had only heard one or two songs at that point, it's that far back now I can't even remember which they were exactly. But even then this band of anarcho punks had dug their way into my collection where they would never leave. They became part of the soundtrack of my youth.



I started University and in some ways my taste in music began to change. Gone were the bands like Bad Religion and Flogging Molly, in were the AC/DC's and Thin Lizzy's. The people I lived with objected less to Angus Young and as a result that's what I listened to for many years. While in University I began piecing together the reasons why I was unhappy. It was because people weren't seeing me as I saw myself. I couldn't put my finger at it but looking back I knew I was trans, even if I didn't know the right word for it. This is where my private 'dressing up' times were at their most intense. Although in the moment it helped, in the light of day it never made me happy. I still thought though that there was no life outside of this. I thought all I could do was present in private and there were no options. While things seemed far clearer in my younger days listening to punk at obscene volumes. The world become far more confusing and muddier without these bands in my life and I'd like to think that in some ways AM! were a part of earlier clarity.

This would continue until 2012. I still had no idea that trans people existed (It's true!). That was until I saw an article from Rolling Stone a few days after my birthday. This article contained a name and face I recognised. "Oh look" I thought. "That singer from that band I used to like might be the same as me". So I clicked on the article and from that moment on my life completely changed. It felt like for the first time a musician was speaking directly to me. It was if the person on the other side of the page was screaming back "THIS IS SOMETHING, THERE IS NO SHAME IN IT, YOU ARE REAL". And from that moment on I spent days searching for any tiny scraps on the person who we would come to call Laura. At this same time I begun looking into the options available to people like me. Those who never felt right but had no words. No terminology. No clue.

I learned a lot from Laura since then. Terminology, philosophy and a way to make sense of what I was feeling. I begun listening to music from those middle years that I missed. Songs like The Ocean and Searching for a Former Clarity. Those hints had been there but I would never have made sense of them. One thing was clear however, I wasn't going to let this band go.

I think things made more sense in 2014 with the release of what I consider the most important album in my life. Transgender Dysphoria Blues. I remember listening to it on a bus on the way home from work. The rain pouring down the window as the into to Fuck My Life 666 began to play. I thought to myself that there was no point running away from this. I wasn't happy and I needed to figure out how I could find that. I began researching into gender dysphoria, joined a few forums and in the months following I started this blog. All the while it felt like Laura was there beside me. TDB is responsible getting me though the last few years and has become an almost weekly listen.



2014 was also first time I got to see them play live. My brother took me as a surprise gift and he somehow managed to get me to the front. During a particular moment of 'We Laugh at Danger and Break all the Rules' Laura put down her instrument and jumped into the crowd. The crowd went wild and it made me realise something. She is doing her thing, there are hundreds of people here in awe of this person. She clambered down in front of me after surfing the crowd for what felt like forever. The 3 or so people next to me all embraced and Grace joined in. For those few moments there was nobody else around us. Just this little group. We all appreciated and loved eachothers company even for those brief moments. As the band left the stage and the club lights turned back on I turned to my brother. Looked him in the eyes and said something I'd never told anyone

"I think I might be trans"

The bands music had brought me and my brother together more than any other group. And Laura gave me the confidence to tell him who I was.

For the next 2 years Against Me! became a regular backdrop in my car to work, on the train home from nights out. Appearing often on jukeboxes in rock bars and requested at club nights. And when I felt most down, songs like True Trans Soul Rebel were there to pick me back up.

And I've never needed something stable to hold onto more than right now. Since I began getting my transition plans in order I've ran the whole gamut of emotions. I'm now the happiest I've ever been and a lot of that is down to this bands music. However I would be lying if I said this year hasn't been challenging. There are times when I've felt at my loneliest, sometimes feeling like there's nobody in my life I can talk to. But I've had this one constant helping me through it all, the four piece originating from Gainesville.



Nowhere has this helped more than in the last few weeks. There's been a few times recently where I've been unable to see the light at the end of the tunnel, the frustrating NHS system, the situation with my family and general work woes about being an open trans person in a career that I adore so much. Coming out could spell the end of so many parts of my life, my relationships and my work are all in jeopardy. But during this time a song appeared on my Facebook. A song from a band who has always spoken to me, has always been there and will hopefully be there for many more years. A song that lifted my spirit and got me excited again. Excited for the future, excited for where I'm going and what I can accomplish.  So if anyone from Against Me! reads this. Thank you for so many years of amazing music. Thank you for giving me a purpose and thank you for lifting me up when nothing else could. Keep rockin' and I'll see you in Bristol in December :)

Charlotte xx