JD Samson is an American musician and performer from Cleveland, Ohio, born in 1978. She grows up in Pepper Pike, a suburb of Cleveland, and attends Orange High School before studying film at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, graduating in 2000.

Samson becomes closely associated with Kathleen Hanna’s feminist electropunk band Le Tigre, where she joins after college as a replacement for Sadie Benning. Before joining the group, she works as its projectionist. Her style is androgynous, and she is openly lesbian from the age of 15. She is also referred to as Jocelyn Samson.

Her work extends beyond Le Tigre through a number of related projects and collaborations. She is associated with The New England Roses, Dykes Can Dance, Peaches’ live band, and The Herms, alongside Radio Sloan and Samantha Maloney. In 2006, she works with Junior Senior on the song “Can I Get Get Get”.

Samson appears in John Cameron Mitchell’s film Shortbus and in Le Tigre’s “Viz,” which reflects her experiences as a sexual minority. She also creates JD’s Lesbian Calendar with photographer Cass Bird in 2003 and JD’s Lesbian Utopia in 2006, a project documenting travels around the United States in an RV. In 2004, music writer Kelefa Sanneh describes her as “an icon of nerdy cool.”

She is a member of Le Tigre, MEN, New England Roses, and Crickets.