Johnson began working as a drag queen after coming out as gay. She chose the drag name "Marsha P. Johnson". "Johnson" comes from the restaurant Howard Johnson's. She said that the "P" stood for "pay it not mind," a phrase she would use when people asked her gender. Johnson referred to herself as gay, a transvestite, and a drag queen interchangeably and preferred "they," rather than "she," to be used as a pronoun. Although she never referred to herself as being transgender, many modern scholars believe that was only because the term still was rarely used during her lifetime.