The Only Kind Of Steady I Believe In

Against Me! “Unconditional Love”

“Unconditional Love” is as happy as the songs on Against Me!’s Transgender Dysphoria Blues get, and I wasn’t surprised to learn that it was actually the last song written for the record. Most of the record is focused on the intense anguish of experiencing dysphoria, or struggling to shift your identity and relationships with people you’ve known for years. “Unconditional Love” isn’t a resolution of any kind, but it’s a little further along the process of change and upheaval – it’s at least at a place where unconditional love is being offered by those closest to you, and realizing that while that’s good and useful, it’s just not enough to make it. If self-loathing runs deep enough, it blocks out everyone else’s love. You disqualify it, you doubt it, you twist it into something else. But even in knowing that, the song still feels a bit jolly and triumphant. “Unconditional love” is still a lot more than Laura Jane Grace was expecting.

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