Laura Jane Grace, the lead singer of Against Me! burned her birth certificate on stage Sunday night in protest of House Bill 2.  The band was playing a scheduled show at Motorco in Durham.

As the document burned, Grace waved and said, “Goodbye gender!”  Watch the fan-captured burning below.


House Bill 2 was passed by the North Carolina General Assembly and signed into law by Governor Pat McCrory in March.  The law was passed in response to a Charlotte anti-discrimination ordinance.  It strips local governments in the state from passing laws that would grant anti-discrimination protection to people in the LGBT community.  It also removes any power that local and county governments have to adopt living wage ordinances.  Most of the controversy regarding the law has centered on a provision that requires a person to use the public bathroom that corresponds with the gender on their birth certificate.

Since the law was passed, businesses have condemned it, artists have cancelled shows, towns have passed resolutions, and lawsuits have been filed.

Grace told Buzzfeed that she intended on using the band’s North Carolina show to make a statement in an April interview:

“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. They are not going to go away…An attack by a transgender person against another person in a bathroom has never been documented.  There are more incidents of straight senators having issues in bathrooms than transgender people.”

Grace publicly came out as transgender in 2012.

On Monday afternoon, Grace shared more thoughts on the subject via Twitter.