ALAMEDA — Anika Miller is the primary agender pupil to be honored by Women Inc. of the Island Metropolis with its annual award, “Girls Who Dare,” and is redefining the group within the course of.
Amongst different issues, the nonprofit Women Inc. supplies youth with lessons outdoors of normal education. Miller, who has been attending this system since center college, is being acknowledged as its stand-out participant this yr due to private progress, LGBTQ+ activism and engagement with STEM lessons.
Miller, 17, identifies as agender and makes use of they/them pronouns.
“If we have been ever outdated sooner or later with how inclusive we’re being, teenagers like Anika are actually serving to pave the best way to a brand new which means to Women Inc.,” Maria Tijerino-Lew, director of adlescent applications at Women Inc. of the Island Metropolis, calling Miller a trailblazer due to their gender id.
Women Inc. has lessons in a number of fields, however Miller targeted on STEM, a profession path the teenager hopes to observe. The Women Inc. lessons have allowed Miller to satisfy each professionals within the STEM area and instructors from the Faculty of Alameda.
“It was an incredible place to be, actually, as somebody who was excited about science and was form of shy and wished to satisfy new individuals who have been additionally excited about math and science,” Miller mentioned.
The teenager, a senior at Alameda Excessive College, was accepted to a number of universities earlier than committing to the Faculty of Engineering at Oregon State College starting within the fall.
“What actually stood out to me is simply the expansion that they’ve had in this system,” Tijerino-Lew mentioned of Miller. “I really feel like they've not too long ago blossomed into their full potential … being very assured in who they're.”
Together with success in education, Miller additionally has had a red-letter couple of years on the subject of discovering components of their id.
The teenager, who appears as much as their mom, transgender activists Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera and Princess Diana, not too long ago started figuring out as asexual, together with agender. “Asexual” refers to somebody who doesn't really feel sexual attraction to others.
Miller credit the pandemic with serving to them notice they have been queer, an expertise they are saying is shared by many individuals round them.
“There was one thing concerning the social isolation,” Miller mentioned. “It allowed folks to be very separate from what was anticipated of them and the way they felt they wanted to carry out in entrance of different folks, which in flip helped lots of people notice that possibly they didn’t actually need to costume a sure manner or act a sure manner, possibly they didn’t actually really feel interested in the people who they have been anticipated to [be attracted to].”
Miller has been concerned the previous few years with the Gender Sexuality Alliance at Alameda Excessive, presently serving because the president. The group is planning a Day of Silence, wherein taking part college students and employees won't converse for a whole college day, speaking solely in gestures and writing, to attract consideration to the historic and ongoing silencing of the LGBTQ+ group. Day of Silence is a nationwide program began by the Homosexual, Lesbian & Straight Schooling Community.
Miller additionally takes half within the college district’s LGBTQ+ roundtable, which is the go-to committee for people who find themselves excited about queer points, in line with the teenager. The roundtable is engaged on an “Everybody Belongs Right here” poster and poetry contest to have fun folks’s diversified identities, together with queer id and the way that intersects with different components of an individual, corresponding to gender and ethnicity.
Miller notes that the pandemic, although it helped many queer folks come to phrases with who they're, additionally was isolating for many who don't see themselves mirrored of their fast household, which led to feeling separated from the folks round them. A examine executed by Canadian agency KLB Analysis discovered that those that establish as LGBTQ+ have been 10% extra more likely to expertise PTSD-related signs associated to the pandemic and 9% extra more likely to rating increased on a scale measuring melancholy, anxiousness and stress than others.
However in Miller’s case, the teenager says they really really feel supported by their group within the work they do surrounding LGBTQ+ activism.
“We’ve been very lucky that our communities have been very, very respectful and understanding, and employees [at the school] has jumped to have the ability to assist us,” Miller mentioned.