Johnny Science was an American activist, make-up artist, musician, and drag king known for his work on behalf of drag kings, kink, trans men, and gay men.
19 Facts About Johnny Science
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Johnny Science has been called "the unsung hero of female-to-male consciousness raising" in New York City.
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Johnny Science was assigned female at birth and began using cork makeup to playact in male drag when he was three or four years old.
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Johnny Science's parents were generally supportive of these artistic pursuits.
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Johnny Science found inspiration in the work of makeup artist and actor Lon Chaney as a child.
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Between 1977 and 1980, Johnny Science attended Farleigh Dickenson University and studied gender and transsexuality.
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Johnny Science art directed for Max's Kansas City at this time.
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Johnny Science began to seek medical gender transition in 1986.
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Johnny Science began corresponding with other trans men in the United States, such as Lou Sullivan, the founder of FTM International, Mario Martino, author of one of the first autobiographies on the trans male experience, and Rupert Raj, founder of Foundation for the Advancement of Canadian Transsexuals.
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Johnny Science adopted the name Johnny Science, though at various points in his life he answered to Johnny Armstrong, Daniel Austen, and John Grant.
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In May 1988, Johnny Science went on Howard Stern's television show to attempt to get the word out about transsexual men's issues.
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One year later, in March 1989, Johnny Science formed a meetup group for "FTM transsexuals, crossdressers, and their friends" called F2M Fraternity.
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Johnny Science began teaching drag king workshops in 1989, which consisted of teaching people assigned female at birth how to present themselves as male via makeup and clothing.
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Johnny Science taught these workshops all across America, and taught several internationally as well.
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In May 1992, Johnny Science organized a Drag King Ball at the Crow Bar, which included a drag king contest.
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Johnny Science ensured that this would be reported on extensively on by the New York press.
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Some time in the late 1990s or early 2000s, Johnny Science chose to go "stealth" - that is, to pull away from FTM activism and blend in with the cisgender gay male community.
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Johnny Science preserved hundreds of documents, videos, sound files, and other ephemera pertaining to his and other peoples' LGBT activism in both print and digital form in his home.
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Johnny Science was in ill health for the last ten years of his life.