Against Me! Singer to Become Woman

MAN AGAINST WOMAN: Tom Gabel, the lead singer of Florida punk-rock mainstays Against Me!, revealed he has decided to come out as transgender and begin living as a woman. Last March, he performed an acoustic, as-yet-unreleased song called "Transgender Dysphoria Blues" at a show in Corpus Christi, TX, describing exactly what he was going through. In the next issue of Rolling Stone, the 31-year-old married father reveals he plans to take hormones and undergo electrolysis treatments, and will take the name Laura Jane Grace. Gabel will remain married to his wife, Heather, with whom he has a two-year-old daughter. "For me, the most terrifying thing about this was how she would accept the news," Gabel said. Hints about his lifelong struggle with gender identity can be heard in a number of Against Me! songs, including “The Ocean,” in which he sings, "And if I could have chosen, I would have been born a woman/My mother once told me she would have named me Laura/I'd grow up to be strong and beautiful like her." Jayne County was the most well-known rocker to take the transgender route before this. (5/10p)