Music

Against Me! refuse to cancel North Carolina concert as act of protest

by Jeremy Mersereau

On March 23rd, lawmakers in North Carolina passed House Bill 2, which mandates that people must use public washrooms based on the sex marked on their birth certificates, and not the gender by which they may or may not personally identify. To add insult to injury, the bill also expressly prohibits municipalities from getting around the bill by creating their own nondiscrimination ordinances surrounding sexual orientation.

In the wake of such transparently anti-LGBT legislation, musicians such as Bryan Adams and Bruce Springsteen have cancelled upcoming concerts in North Carolina, boycotting the state entirely in an attempt to let officials know exactly what they think of HB2.

However, thats not good enough for Laura Jane Grace, the transgender frontwoman of punk heroes Against Me!, who is opting not to cancel her scheduled May 15th concert in Durham, NC.

“Visibility is more important than ever; to go there and have the platform of a stage to stand on and speak your mind and represent yourself,” Grace said in an interview with Buzzfeed. While she commends allies like Springsteen for bringing greater attention to the issue with his high-profile boycott, Grace plans to stand her ground and fight back by turning the concert into an act of protest.

“I’m going to create an event around the show as a form of protest to say that despite whatever stupid laws they enact, trans people are not going to be scared,” she continued. “They are not going to go away.”

Against Me! is also donating their guarantee from the North Carolina show to the Charlotte-based Time Out Youth, the largest LGBTQ youth centre in the Carolinas.

Grace’s actions seem to be catching on: British folk-rockers Mumford and Sons will be creating a charitable fund in response to House Bill 2, donating all the proceeds from their North Carolina show to it in order to fund anti-discriminatory initiatives. Hopefully, North Carolina lawmakers and officials will be forced to start contemplating the long-term viability of the bill.