Laura Jane Grace
American musician
Laura Jane Grace (born Thomas James Gabel; November 8, 1980) is an American musician, singer, and songwriter, best known as the founder, lead singer, songwriter, and rhythm guitarist of the punk rock band Against Me!. In addition to Against Me!, Grace fronts the band Laura Jane Grace & the Devouring Mothers, a solo project she started in 2016. Grace is notable for being one of the first highly visible punk rock musicians to publicly come out as transgender, which she did in May 2012. She released her first solo studio album since transitioning, Stay Alive, in 2020, followed by Hole in My Head in 2024.
Early life
Grace was born in Fort Benning, Georgia, the eldest child of United States Army Major Thomas Gabel and Bonnie Gabel (née Grace). Grace has a brother named Mark, who is six years younger. The family moved frequently between military bases due to their father's military career, living briefly in Fort Hood, Texas; Pennsylvania; Ohio; Germany; and at a NATO post in Naples, Italy, during the Gulf War. When she was 8 years old while living in Italy, Grace bought her first guitar from Sears mail order with money saved from mowing lawns. Grace initially took guitar lessons from an army officer's wife, but ended up teaching herself how to play.
When she was 12 years old, Grace's parents had an acrimonious divorce, which led to Grace and her brother moving with their mom from Naples, Italy – where their father remained – to Naples, Florida, to live with their maternal grandmother.
“Laura Jane Grace” enters the record as american musician. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Laura, Jane and Grace can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Laura Jane Grace” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Laura, Jane and Grace provides the most credible route into that argument.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5748559. VIAF identifies the subject as 80225854. The Library of Congress control number is n2013066763. 4 of 6 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1980, 2016, 2012 and 2020.
A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
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This entry incorporates text from “Laura Jane Grace” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.