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I identify as a woman with both masculine and feminine traits. I have the privilege of identifying with the sex I was born as. This has allowed me to be in touch with and develop my feminine strength. I love being soft and pastel pink just as much as I enjoy being determined, loud, and every color under the sun. Being born as and identifying as a woman has helped me to express myself through my fashion, my ever color-changing long curly hair, and varying make-up looks. Being a woman also lends me to being frequently underestimated or discounted, and that experience has caused me to become more outspoken and fiercer with my boundaries, beliefs, and self-value.

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I have two beautiful daughters that I’m lucky enough to have call me mom. I became a mom at 18 after a very short pregnancy. Many people were betting against my success as a teen mom and a teen bride, as I married my husband just a month before having our oldest daughter. After almost ten years since holding my child in my arms for the first time, being a mother is still one of my proudest titles. It’s extremely important to me to have characteristics that are more than “just” being a mother, however, it is also extremely special to know that I am the whole world to my girls right now. I was lucky to have fairly good parents growing up to model much of my parenting style after, and even luckier that as grandparents they are supportive and flexible with my asks as I carve out my own type of motherhood. Pushing my children for success in their interests and being kind and well rounded humans are goals that have taken the forefront in my life. I work hard because I want to provide them with every opportunity I didn’t have growing up. I am pursuing my degree and education to show them that I would never ask them to do something I’m not willing to do myself, and also to show them that they can do anything they set their mind to. I try to teach them to love themselves and to be good people because they want to be, not because they’re being forced to. I dedicate most of my waking time to being the best mother I can be to them.

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Growing up mixed race in a predominantly white culture lent me to feeling exotic for my slight outward differences. In school I got a lot of attention for my voluminous curls and tanned skin. I was also frequently mislabeled in my ethnic identity. Though I have African American heritage I was typically identified by others as Hispanic or Islander in ethnicity, though I do not have roots in either. I was also frequently told that I “spoke well” or was articulate. As a child I believed this was a compliment of my intelligence, but as a teenager and an adult I realized that it was actually a way to make me more palatable to my white cohorts. Being mixed also meant that my cousins from the Black side of my family often treated me differently or reminded me that my father’s marriage to my mother was a betrayal to his race to dilute his bloodlines. All of this has led me to feel confused and guilty about identifying with both sides of my heritage as I am constantly reminded that I am not fully accepted as either one.

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Being a mother drove me into another passion of mine: being an egg donor and surrogate carrier. To date, I have completed three successful egg donations and one successful surrogacy, delivering in December 2020. Watching two new daddies holding their child for the first time brought me back to the moment I held my own daughter for the first time in my arms. It has been a dream and goal of mine ever since becoming a mother to make that moment happen for someone else, and it was absolutely worth every single second to see it come true. After having our second daughter I chose to sterilize myself, but I still want to continue helping others through a few more egg donations before I eventually age-out of being able to give ova. It is a beautiful experience that has helped me make new friends and connections within the TTC (trying to conceive) community and the health providers that work to turn every “no” into a “yes” for hopeful parents. It is something that has grown my ability for compassion and empathy for others and has made me much more sensitive to the invisible battles that are fought by others every day.

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I grew up in a sex-positive household despite my parent’s religion. My mom always had easy conversations with me and my siblings about intimacy and sexual orientation. I realized as a teenager that I was attracted to people regardless of their gender or gender identity and more so attracted to them based on their personalities and the relationships we developed with each other over time. As an adult I’ve been able to explore and understand myself better to the point of finding a sexual orientation that truly encompasses me and makes me feel like I’m not alone in the way I am. I’ve come to find that I identify as demisexual and bisexual, which are two identifiers that my heart is happy and at home with. I care very passionately about LGBTQ+ issues and rights, though I do find that being in a heteronormative relationship sometimes leads me to feel like I should not claim this community as my own. Similarly to being mixed race, being bisexual can sometimes feel like I’m trying to identify with two communities that do not accept me as either and I’m not allowed to be both.

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As a child I loved participating in community theater with my family and relished in all the costumes that took up their own room in my childhood home. My parents and extended family were all encouraging and had roots in theater, fantasy, and, most impactful to me, comics. As a teenager and young adult I enjoyed creating characters, indulging in fantasy books and comics, and casual LARPing with my family. I taught myself to sew after watching my mom make everything from costumes to wedding gowns and began to create costumes of my own. I custom make my costumes and accessories and moved on to learn to craft in foam, floral supplies, and sFx make-up. As I gained confidence to share my work and take my costumes to conventions and events, I have made friends in the cosplay world. I make coordinated Halloween costumes every year for my family and include my daughters in my cosplay adventures.