"If I could have chosen, I would have been born a woman / My mother once told me she would have named me Laura / I would grow up to be strong and beautiful like her." --"The Ocean," lyrics by Thomas James Gabel Grace's early years were spent in a disillusioned rage as she grappled with the fact she didn't identify with her body, further complicated by the strain of her parents' unhappy marriage. As a teenager, she struggled with drug addiction and depression, found punk rock and lost herself in the nihilism and anarchism which created the foundation for Against Me!. With Against Me! came success not to mention the dissolute life of a rock star. The national stardom only further fuelled Grace's struggles with identity and addiction. And, finally in 2012 Grace went public with Rolling Stone magazine, and began her transition to Laura Jane Grace, leaving Thomas James Gable behind forever. Peppered throughout with Laura Jane's never-before-published journal entries that reach back to childhood, KILL ME LOUDLY is an intensely personal and revelatory look inside sex, drugs, failed marriages, music, and soul of a punk rock icon.

Author Biography

Laura Jane Grace is a transgender musician best known as the founder, lead singer, songwriter and guitarist of the punk rock band Against Me!. Since coming out as transgender in a 2012 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, she has become an outspoken advocate for transgender awareness. She has a daughter and lives in Chicago. Dan Ozzi is a New York-based writer and has served as the editor of VICE's music site, Noisey