2000 Great Songs #1323: Transgender Dysphoria Blues

It gets harder and harder to come up with a genuine punk anthem that has something new to say. But the title track of Against Me!'s 2014 Transgender Dysphoria Blues feels unlike anything we'd heard before, both in its unabashedly direct take on being trans and Laura Jane Grace's soul-baring honesty. Which might've come across as something a little too intimate to crank up on the stereo, full of well-earned vitriol--against both herself and those who torment her, if it hadn't been tethered to a catchy, rousing little romp, more hometown bar-band stomp than punk rock. It's one thing to marvel at her self-effacing confession, "You've got no c*** in your strut, you've got no hips to shake" as unusually direct words on a lyric sheet; it's quite another to feel compelled to shout along. Cathartic, devasting, and (disappointingly) still woefully necessary.

Live at Reading Festival 2015:

Unplugged:

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