22 Facts About Kathleen Hanna

Kathleen Hanna is the lead singer of feminist punk band Bikini Kill and fronted the electropunk band Le Tigre in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Kathleen Hanna is married to Adam Horovitz of the Beastie Boys.

At age three, her family moved to Calverton, Maryland; as Kathleen Hanna's father changed occupations, the family moved several more times.

Kathleen Hanna first became interested in feminism around the age of nine, after her mother took her to a rally in Washington, DC where feminist icon Gloria Steinem spoke.

Kathleen Hanna's interest grew when her mother checked out a copy of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique from the library.

However, the school administrators took the photos down before they had the chance to be viewed, an act of censorship that prompted what Kathleen Hanna refers to as her "first foray into activism": the creation of Reko Muse, an independent feminist art gallery, with friends Heidi Arbogast and Tammy Rae Carland.

Kathleen Hanna then formed a band with Arbogast and Carland, called "Amy Carter", which put on shows before the art exhibitions.

Later, Kathleen Hanna started another band called Viva Knievel that toured the United States for two months before disbanding.

The project was created entirely in Kathleen Hanna's bedroom using a $40 drum machine.

Kathleen Hanna soon moved to New York City, and with the addition of filmmaker Sadie Benning, they started another band called Le Tigre based upon a more electronic style of music, similar to the sampler-driven sound Kathleen Hanna had begun to explore with Julie Ruin.

Kathleen Hanna left the band in 2005 due to illness; she was later diagnosed with late-stage Lyme disease.

Kathleen Hanna taught an art class at NYU's graduate school in the Fall 2007 semester and attended interior design classes.

In 2010, Kathleen Hanna DJed at the Museum of Modern Art, later joining the Raincoats on stage to cover the Slits' Vindictive.

Also in 2010, Kathleen Hanna announced she was rebuilding her 1997 act Julie Ruin, turning it into a full band called the Julie Ruin with Kenny Mellman and Kathi Wilcox, and that they would be creating a new record.

From 2010 to 2013, director Sini Anderson worked on a documentary on Kathleen Hanna titled The Punk Singer, documenting her works from Bikini Kill to the Julie Ruin.

At Bikini Kill concerts, Kathleen Hanna would ask women to move to the front of the stage to avoid harassment from males, as part of her idea of "girls to the front' or "Revolution Girl Style Now.

In 1991, Hanna performed with Bikini Kill at the Pro-Choice Rally at the National Mall in Washington, DC before the Planned Parenthood v Casey trial.

Kathleen Hanna had acquired an infection, was extremely ill, and walked into a Planned Parenthood clinic for help.

Previously, critics had suggested Kathleen Hanna was trans-exclusionary for having performed at the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival in 2001 and 2005, which had a policy of exclusively allowing "womyn-born-womyn" into the event.

Kathleen Hanna was identified as bisexual in a 1993 Out article, while a 2013 Pride.

In 2006, Kathleen Hanna married Adam Horovitz of the Beastie Boys.

Kathleen Hanna suffered from Lyme disease for six years before it was correctly diagnosed.