Tom Gabel of Against Me!: A rock star changes gender in the spotlight

Well, this seems to be a first for punk rock: Tom Gabel, lead singer ofAgainst Me!, announced in a new Rolling Stone interview that he is transgender and will begin living as a woman, via hormone and cosmetic treatments. Future name: Laura Jane Grace. Gabel plans to stay married to wife Heather — and apparently to keep on rocking: The Florida band has a new album on the way and a national tour headed to the Fillmore in Silver Spring next month.

“I’m going to have embarrassing moments,” Gabel told the magazine. “But . . . [I’m] hoping people will understand, and hoping they’ll be fairly kind.”

We’ll see. There were messages of support on the band’s Facebook page, but some ugly outbursts on other music forums. The news surprised fans of the band, whose liberal-activist politics are wrapped in a macho aesthetic — growly voices, loud guitars, tattooed lumberjack arms. (Of course, their song “The Ocean” is getting a new listen: And if I could have chosen, I would have been born a woman / My mother once told me she would have named me Laura / I’d grow up to be strong and beautiful like her.)

Truth is, it’s not just new territory for punk rock.

The list of VIPs who have undergone gender reassignment in a very public way (excluding those like tennis player Renée Richards, who became famous only after surgery) may begin and end with Sonny and Cher’s kid,Chaz Bono, who announced his transition from female to male in 2009; it later became a theme for his reality show. (His rep declined “to comment on others’ journeys.”) But Larry Wachowski, half of the publicity-shy sibling team that directed “The Matrix” movies, never discussed her change-of-gender until press materials last year for a new movie casually referred to her as “Lana Wachowski.”

Megan Wallent, a Seattle-based Microsoft executive, decided to chronicle her 2007 transition fromMichael to Megan on a blog. With the prominence of her job, “we took the approach the more people know, the easier it’s going to be.” Advice for Gabel? “The biggest pitfall,” Wallent said, “is making your life be about your transition rather than making your transition about your life.”

Which could be tricky for Gabel, who went from being a moderately prominent rocker to That Transgendered Rock Star overnight. No worries, said Wallent, the novelty will wane. “If you’re awesome at what you do, if you’re a great person, that’s what’s going to persist.”

Tom Gabel of Against Me! announces plans to change gender; more John Travolta accusations

By Jen Chaney

A morning mix of entertainment headlines...Tom Gabel, frontman for the band Against Me!, has come out as transgender and announced plans to become a woman. In an upcoming interview with Rolling Stone, Gabel says she has a condition called gender dysphoria, will begin taking female hormones and may undergo gender reassignment surgery. The 31-year-old — whose band is best known for the rock hit “Thrash Unreal” — plans to remain married to her wife, but will change her name to Laura Jane Grace. This revelation comes just as Against Me! embarks on a U.S. and European tour and recently performed an unreleased song called “Transgender Dysphoria Blues.” (Rolling Stone via Associated Press )

Yesterday afternoon a second masseur joined the lawsuit against John Travolta , also alleging that the Academy Award-nominated actor committed sexual battery and harassment while receiving a massage. Travolta’s attorney, Marty Singer, continues to deny the claims as “totally false and fabricated.” The masseurs, who have not publicly revealed their identities, are seeking $2 million each in damages. TMZ has published a photo of Travolta in New York on Jan. 16, 2012, the day the first “John Doe” says the actor was receiving a massage in Los Angeles. (People; TMZ)

Jessica Simpson is really enjoying motherhood. Last night she tweeted the following about her daughter:The celebrity line-up for the new Fox dating show “The Choice” has been revealed. And it includes such famous single-person names asThe Situation and Pauly D of “Jersey Shore,” Joe Jonas, Dean Cain(oh, Superman, really?) and Carmen Electra. All of the celebs will sit in spinning chairs, a la “The Voice,” and decide which dating pitches to accept. Worth noting: women only get to sit in the chairs during one episode; the rest of the time, this will be a male-dominated exercise. Jezebel, surely you’re on this already? (Entertainment Weekly)

“Iron Man 3” casting update: Jessica Chastain out, Rebecca Hallpossibly in? (Vulture)

“Kick-Ass 2” might be happening: Universal is in talks with Matthew Vaughn, who directed the first movie and is producing the sequel, which he wrote. If the deal gets done, Aaron Johnson, Chloe Moretzand Christopher Mintz-Plasse are expected to reprise their roles as Kick-Ass, Hit-Girl and Red Mist, respectively. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Bugeyes, who may or may not be a real person and is probably part of a marketing campaign for “Men in Black III,” has accused Arianna Huffington of being an alien. He did this on the Huffington Post in a sponsor-generated post, so I am pretty sure the media mogul is not, as Bugeyes alleges, creating a GPS map of the human soul. (Huffington Post)