2025 has not been easy. I started off the year getting into a car accident that would total my just bought car, and leave me injured, having to go to physical therapy for months afterwards. From there school, and my home environment constantly pushed me down. But despite this, this year has taught me something that I truly needed, that I independently, can me a leader in my life and overcome adversity. Being a socially awkward person is hard, especially when when truly your a social butterfly who just has a hard time taking off. As a child, my parents and I moved across the southeast united states so much even i forget places when I list them off to other people. That combined with my childhood anxiety and sensory issues often made me completely mute at places like school, summer camp, and day care. Because my childhood years were spent often isolating myself from other people, I didn't begin creating deep bonds with other kids until my middle school years. Even then, I my friendships would never be able to last more than a year as my parents moved me from middle school to middle school across my district, or forced me to leave all my friends behind because they didn't agree with who I was as a person. all of this lead to me developing Borderline Personality Disorder, and other mental issues that would manifest in my outward behavior and appearance. If i had been given the proper psychiatric help within my younger years, I wouldn't have developed the anxious and avoidant personality that I am now working to combat. I decided in my sophomore year that even though my struggles weren't over, I had to work hard to make sure other teens and kids in the future would never begin with the struggles that I had. I plan on becoming a psychiatrist or a neurologist not just because I want to help people, but because I was once the kid going through fits of rage because I didn't feel seen, and I was once the kid having seizures at the dinner table because of the stress from my grandfather's Alzheimer's diagnosis. My whole life I've faced adversity, and in my foreseeable future, there's more adversity coming. But I know that as long as I keep continue pushing, not for myself, but for all the other queer kids in America, and all the people affected by neurodegenerative disorders, that in the end my work will be worth it. Education, to me, is not just learning, but the gateway to a better future where no one goes through the same adversity I did.

Twins, identical twins to be exact, especially girls, had been my largest fear since my father made me watch the shining whenever I was a child. Or at least that's the experience I attributed my fear of twins to, however it wouldn't be until later on, when Jordan Peele's "Us." would begin advertising that I would begin to realize what my true fear of twins was connected to. I began painfully aware of the movie Us around the age of 10. As a child, horror movie ads had always scared me, but for some reason the very idea of this movie's existence sent chills down my spine, and had me staying up until 11:11 at night everyday to ensure the tethered's rebellion against the surface hadn't begun. Overtime, even at my young age, I realized my fear existed within the details of the story, not only the concept itself. I looked up every synopsis over the movie that was available to me with my unrestricted internet access, and yet my fear continued to grow. No matter how much I rationalized the fact that the concept of doppelgangers overtaking the United States was implausible, nothing could push me away from the idea of this movie. This cycle would continue until a totally unrelated experience with other movies eventually led me to becoming a horror fan years later, and at 14 I decided to finally sit down and watch the movie. I knew every plot detail about it anyways, every fan theory, every thought concept from behind the scenes, and when I sat down to watch the movie, it wasn't that scary. It would take 2 more years for me to gain the maturity to finally answer myself why this movie scared me so much. In truth, the issue was obvious all along. It was my internalized fear of myself, the version of me that I couldn't express to the world, never fully, that caused this phobia. The existence of twins had always offset me because I was uncomfortable with the thought that I was a different person that I presented to the outside world, and this movie not only forced that fear front and center, but showed the oppressed self, internalized beneath the surface overtaking what was shown to the world. As a trans person, I've always understood that my internal self diverged from my external appearance, but the idea of doppelgangers made that too obvious for my young mind, and so I feared it. The movie Us made me realize that I had to allow myself to be me, no matter the consequences, because if not, the version of myself that existed within me would eventually destroy me to my core, and kill what everyone sees in the process.

As a biracial person, I exist in the crossroads of 2 worlds, my mother from Sierra Leone, where being gay or trans is a punishable offense, and my father from a poor rural town in central Florida, where the republican party has convinced people I’m a monster of their enemy. As a transfem person, I’ve existed in between these crossroads in fear of my life, because ever since I came out, and was forced back into the closet when i was 12, I knew how this story would end. Coming out to my parents at 12 wasn’t easy, and ended how so many trans peoples story’s do. I was told I was too young to know what I wanted, and without the proper vocabulary, how could I defend myself against my family? Despite this, internally i never gave up, and would go in and out of being “caught” existing in my transness for years until 2 months ago, when I finally came out to my family. Those years in between however, were the hardest of my life, I survived 2 suicide attempts, an eating disorder that would cause seizures and other physical complications, and depressive episodes that led me to underperforming in school. Being forced to present as a man to my family, and to the rest of the world as a feminine gay person at my most freeing moments left me to being a shell of who I truly was. Shifting from one mask to another, but never truly being able to get close to anyone I knew. This isolation killed me slowly inside, making me feel as if there was nothing to live for but the knowledge that one day, I would be forced to leave it all behind, but granted the freedom to be myself. Once I came out this year, my life didn’t become easier. My parent’s initially tried to start the same cycle of denial and re-closeting that we had played in the past. But my reluctance to that left me almost leaving my home months before 18. To this day in their eyes, my identity stands in limbo, if they threaten me with cutting me off, or worse, maybe the demon inside of me will flee, and I’ll realize my identity as a man of god. But I know the truth, I know that the woman I am didn’t fight this long to live as a man into adulthood, and I know that my passion for education will deliver me from this. My love for education was something instilled in me by my immigrant mother from a young age, and since my realization that my families’ presence in my life was as fickle as the book that decided their beliefs on me, I knew education would be my way to help myself and others. In my path to college, I’ve faced racism, transphobia, homophobia, and even islamophobia for simply being from a muslim country without being muslim myself. Despite this, I understand that these challenges are only going to make me stronger, and allow me to grow into the career that I know I belong to.

I walk into my P.E. Class my first day of freshmen year, theres a large group of boys who of course look at me like an outcast sitting in the back of the Locker room, and of course my middle school bully is with them. Growing up as a black trans girl in an African household in the south has never been easy, but the teacher of this class would teach me that because of simply who I am, people hate me. It would start off as singling me out, but eventually turned into this “teacher” telling me i didn’t belong with other boys, and making jokes about my home country of Sierra Leone to my face. I was smart enough to record these incidents and report him to my school, getting him fired so he wouldn’t be able to hurt any other students the same way he did me. But this situation made me aware that this wouldn’t be the end. Teachers, administrators, charge nurses at volunteering opportunities, and people on the street make assumptions on me just based on my skin color and how I present. I’ve been kicked out of study groups at my asian majority school, lied about by teachers who wanted to see me fail, and plenty more. The hurdles to higher education have been nothing short of a 300m dash. People see me and think I’m dumb, ghetto, vain, mean and so many worse words, but I’ve never let that stop me. For every study group I’ve been kicked out off, I’ve learned to study on my own, and for every teacher who has lied to see my downfall, I’ve gotten an A on a test. I’ve never allowed peoples prejudice to slow me down, but instead I’ve learned to transmute their hatred into motivation for my life. In my native language, Krio, theres a saying “Yanga na pein.” Which means beauty is pain, but to me it means more than the superficial beauty that is shown upon the eyes. To me its my mantra of understanding. The pain pushed upon me to stop me from educating myself is nothing more than a catalyst for the beauty I will one day produce in this world. As a Psychiatrist, and Activist, and a human, and education is my path to that.

Im a student who lives in the 21st century, and with that comes many challenges. Nowadays, I and many other students live through political battles, higher academic competition than ever, and now a whole digital world watching us go through our everyday battles. But beyond these challenges, I push through my adolescent years understanding how I fit into this ever growing world. Because of these challenges though I know who I am, I’m and artist, someone who loves linguistics and anthropology, a writer, a fangirl, and so much more. The internet and the chaos of the current world has given me and so many other people a place for us to truly belong, and that kind of community is something that everyone deserves, not just online. I constantly make an effort to be a leader within my community. From volunteering at my local hospital for over 2 years, to joining my schools National Honors Society to help other students through our tutoring program, and eventually co-founding and awareness club for dementia and Alzheimer’s. Community is important to me because I know what it’s like to not have people to fall back to when times are rough. As a trans person who comes from a family that isn’t as accepting as wanted, my financial needs for higher education come from more than simply wanting to avoid debt, but to ensure my independence, and my ability to safely live as an adult under the current political landscape. I’ve always been someone who works for what they need, and the same is true for finding money for my education. Bullying is something I’ve struggled with throughout my lifetime. Growing up as one of the few black kids in the South was never easy, especially when you add on my femininity and my introverted nature. As a kid, Bullying constantly left me left out of games, and isolated in my classes. With that being said, as I grew into my confidence, especially in high school, I realized i couldn’t allow myself to be the victim of bullying anymore and began standing up for myself, and others. Starting with toxic friends who would constantly belittle me, overtime I’ve become a figure within my school for stopping toxic social environments. Many people think that people like me are an easy target because I don’t always have a home I can lean back on, but that’s never stopped me from protecting myself and others. Last year in particular, I had to deal with multiple forms of cyberbullying as a girl at my school started constantly posting on her story about me while using racist and homophobic slurs. It started off as a once a month occurance, but eventually became prevelant enough that I knew something had to be done. I decided to take the peaceful route and talk to her, and when that didn’t work, my friends and I used a more upfront confrontation to get her to stop, having a group discussion with her in public so that she could no longer hide behind a screen. Despite the disagreement continuing for a while after, eventually she apologized to me during our schools Eid Al-Fitr’s celebrations, showing how toxic situations can not only be stopped, but healed and eventually create new friendships.

I chose Biology because I strive one day to become a Psychiatrist or Neurologist and help kids and teens who struggle with the same issues I have throughout middle and highschool. As a Doctor I want to use my platform to stop and kid from going through what i went through as a Queer teenager. As a black Psychiatrist i'll represent 2% of the workforce, and as a trans person I'll be less then 1%. I want to prove to trans and black youth that we can strive for excellence and have the ability to reach highly educated careers just as much as our more priviledged peers, no matter the financial or emotional cost. I'm becoming a psychiatrist not only for myself, but for my mom's family who fought hard to move to America from Sierra Leone, and for my dad's family who lived in poverty in north florida, fallen trap to an American dream never meant for them. Throughout High school and Middle school, I struggled with a toxic home environment, the stress from it eventually caused me to develope BPD and have stress caused seizures. Despite this I still managed to achieve top 11% of my class, and am on track to graduate Summa Cum Laude. Despite it being hard, I know that I must keep pushing forward, especially in spite of the current administration who seeks to keep BIPOC and LGBT people in the cycles of abuse and poverty that have held us down since the conception of this nation. For black people as a community to reach true racial freedom, we have to lead ourselves to it, as many of us have in the past. Even my own ancestors had to free themselves from slavery, and fight to be returned to the continent in which they came in order to be some of the founding people of the Krio tribe in Sierra Leone. I know that through education, I will one day free myself and my community from the shackles of oppression. I also know that the road won't be easy, but the fight to freedom is worth it. I see my, and every other BIPOC's participation in academia as a rebellion against the white supremacy that urges to hold us down and keep us poor and impovershed. I continue to educate myself because I know, when im old, my participation in education and healthcare will have made the world that much of a better place.