The event, which took place Dec. 2 and was the last stop on the 10-city book tour, ultimately sold out just before showtime. Women and Children First Bookstore sponsored the event.
Grace became famous with her band, Against Me!, over the course of a career that started in 1997 and has produced seven full albums. Up until 2013, Grace performed as Tom Gabel but then came out as suffering from transgender dysphoria in an interview in Rolling Stone magazine in 2012. Gabel then started the transition to living as a woman while also recording and touring behind the Against Me! album Transgender Dysphoria Blues (on Total Treble Records), which dealt with the physical and psychological process of her transformation.
Standing onstage in front of the capacity crowd (approximately 200 people), Grace read excerpts from the book that not only depicts her trans process but her career in music and being a disaffected youth who took part in drug abuse and self-loathing. About the title of the book, Grace said, “I hate that word [“tranny”]. I definitely don’t identify with that word, I don’t like hearing it used for other people. But it captures a lot of what the book is about, and a lot of what the book is about is internalized transphobia and self-hate.”
Though her stories featured a degree of seriousness, Grace kept the event open and light, and this tone was reflected in the Q&A segment of the evening. The audience asked questions and shared anecdotes that included speaking to pre-adolescent children about Grace’s transformation to fan adulation to trans individuals sharing their own tribulations.
As she signed books for the audience, Grace also took individual selfies with each audience member.