Tranny

One of Billboard’s 100 Greatest Music Books of All Time, “a gem of a rock bio that belongs on a shelf alongside Hammer of the Gods and Get in the Van” (Paste Magazine).

It began when a misbehaving punk teenager named Tom Gabel, armed with nothing but an acoustic guitar and a headful of anarchist politics, landed on a riff. Gabel formed Against Me! and rocketed the band from its scrappy beginnings to a major-label powerhouse that critics have called this generation's The Clash. Since its inception in 1997, Against Me! has been one of punk's most influential modern bands, but also one of its most divisive. With every notch the four-piece climbed in their career, they gained new fans while infuriating their old ones.

But underneath the public turmoil, something much greater occupied Gabel—a secret kept for 30 years. Through a troubled childhood, delinquency, and struggles with drugs, Gabel was on a punishing search for identity. Not until May of 2012 did a Rolling Stone profile finally reveal it: Gabel is a transsexual, and would from then on be living as a woman under the name Laura Jane Grace.

More than a typical music memoir, Tranny is an inside look at one of the most remarkable stories in the history of rock.

“Grace provides a valuable starting point for a conversation to broaden the understanding of, and empathy for, trans people.” —Joan Jett

“A powerful, disarmingly honest portrait.” —Entertainment Weekly

“The real power of Tranny comes from Grace's journal entries, which tell the real-time story of a quest for self that winds through addiction, divorce, and, ultimately, action to address the agonizing dysphoria.” —The New York Times Book Review