



The process of gender transition is not easy for any transgender person. Our society is such that the process is not easy on the families, loved ones or anyone involved in the transgender community. I know this firsthand because my father began this journey a few years ago. The strain it put on our family has been intense, but we are private citizens, and my father is not in the limelight.

Going through this transition in such a public way, as Laura Jane Grace of Against Me! has, is assuredly intense, as a recent Rolling Stone profile on her points out. But, perhaps that’s why the letter that Laura Jane Grace’s ex-wife Heather Gabel posted on Facebook today is even more heartbreaking to read. Along with her commentary about the story and her own perspective on it, Gabel also shared a letter she wrote to Rolling Stone that she said she has not received a response to.

Gabel manages to write in a calm and collected way about a situation that was surely one of the most difficult situations in her life, calling out the magazine for the way she says the story twisted her words, and educating plenty of readers in the process. Most telling might be her comments about the magazine’s decision to show Grace’s nipples unedited — which she points out they do not do for cisgendered women — and how that is a clear example of misgendering. In her Facebook post, Gabel has posted a version of the photo that censors Grace’s nipples. I won’t spend a lot more time talking about the situation because Gabel’s words speak so eloquently and forcefully for themselves. But this commentary is a must-read for everyone:





The text of Gabel’s Facebook post:

A couple of weeks ago I talked to a reporter named Alex Morris for about an hr. It was the day before she had to turn in a piece she was writing on Laura Jane Grace (a person I married in 2007, had a child with in 2009, and separated from in 2014). She said she was calling to fact check for the piece which was going to be focusing on LJ’s life since coming out as a trans-woman in 2012. So she asked me questions and I answered them, correcting and clarifying along the way. When the article came out (you can read it here) I was really disappointed to see that it focused on how her transition had ruined her life, and that us splitting up was a result of that transition. Everyone who knows me knows that this is not the case, fuck, the writer knew it because I plainly told her. Why do I care what a bunch of other people reading the article think? Because it’s sensational hetero drama that I don’t want to be even an unwilling party to in print. Because us being together or not being together is not the story, because one day my daughter will be reading this one sided bullshit and that really upsets me. Despite the fact that Alex Morris completely botched what could have been a really eye opening, powerful, piece that other non-binary gendered people could have found something relevant or relatable to, my biggest problem with this piece is the gross misrepresentation of LJ’s gender identity. Rolling Stone has never published a photograph of a non trans women’s nipples uncensored before, which, to me, reads as them making arbitrary distinctions between trans and non trans women, which is fucked up. Everyone’s tits should be legal. In my opinion, this is not a subversive decision aimed at giving censorship the middle finger, it’s a blatant example of misgendering, of gender inequality, and a general slap in the face to anyone who expects to have their gender identity respected. ANYWAYS, I wrote to Rolling Stone after the piece came out but (surprise) they haven’t replied so I’m posting the letter I sent them here in the hopes that it opens a couple of eyes to the tired, biased, conservative, one sided “journalism” they are perpetuating. Oh, and I fixed the photo too. Believe me, I want everyone’s tits out, I am in no way supporting the idea that censorship of women’s nipples is ok at all, but since Rolling Stone censors women’s nipples the photo should have looked a little more like this.

xoxo



Gabel included the text of the letter she sent to Rolling Stone: