"How has your queerness shaped your decisions to attend here today?" a journalist corners me on the red carpet at the biggest youth activism event of the year, shoving his ginormous microphone in my face. The cameras started flashing. Dozens of people associated with the press swarmed us. I stare back at him, shocked and not knowing what to say. This question hit me in the chest. At the time, I was 15 years old, still closeted, and hadn't told a single soul about the feelings I'd been having about my gender identity. I attended this conference to speak on the issues of disability visibility, not LGBTQ issues. I felt like I was sinking in my dress. "I'm here to speak on behalf of my community," I finally respond, hoping my ambiguity wouldn't be taken out of context. I turn my back to the cloud of press and attempt to enter the venue. While walking, I could hear dozens of questions still chanting from reporters, but I needed a break. That was, unfortunately, the first time I had ever spoken to anyone about my sexuality. I wasn't ready, but maybe the pixie cut and "gay accent" had made the reporter think otherwise. I found out later that the person who asked me the question had a large following on social media and was known for being a queer influencer. I've become more comfortable with myself in the three years since that encounter. I've come to terms with labeling myself and now share my lived experiences with my sexuality and gender identity. Most importantly, though, I've entered the LGBTQIA+ activism arena. I've spent hours thinking about that first question I was asked--as activists, how do our identities shape our platforms? And what does intersectional advocacy do for our communities? I've been an activist for my disabled community for as long as I can remember. I've raised over sixty thousand dollars for children affected by a cancer I'm susceptible to. I've been carted to charity event after event as an "example" of a children's future that influential donors can contribute to. Consequently, speaking about disability and politics has always come naturally to me. My disabled identity is an integral part of who I am and my community platform. But so is my sexuality. This year was my first pride. Coming from a conservative family, I never thought I would ever be able to have such a lovely and wonderful experience. I met fellow disabled, queer individuals that I will look up to for the rest of my life. The power and love I experienced on Pittsburgh's downtown streets changed how I viewed my speaking opportunities and community spaces. I reached a new conclusion: I can combine my disability advocacy with messages of uplifting my LGBTQIA+ community. For instance, when talking about social alienation last weekend, I told my story of struggling to fit in through middle and high school. I didn't just experience social alienation because my body is covered in scars from head to toe from countless surgeries; I also struggled to fit in because I looked masculine (seriously, so many people mistake me for a boy and got grossed out when I entered the female bathrooms.) There's still so much work to be done--LGBQIA+ and disabled rights are under political scrutiny every day (especially now with the new political changes.) Still, I want to be a part of the positive changes our community deserves. Every speech, Instagram post, or charity event brings us closer to a better future where I can (hopefully) use the bathroom in peace.

"Crippled!" a ruthless 10-year-old boy shouted at me on the elementary school playground. I picked my head back up and walked inside. That comment was nothing new to me. After all, my body is covered in scars. But at least I have something to look forward to later this afternoon: my older sister is taking me downtown to Pittsburgh's Benedum Theater. We're seeing Wicked. It's my first time attending a fancy theater or seeing a live play. Watching the colors, awestruck in that theater, I saw my community. Seven years later, I've only learned to love the play more. For context, I have a genetic bone disorder called Multiple Hereditary Exestosis, which necessitates surgeries. Hundreds of tumors line my skeletal structure, and when they become problematic, my doctor drills them out. My arms and legs are covered in bright red scars noticeable from a mile away. My body is often labeled the criminal; people see my scars and shriek or cry. We live in a culture where the abnormal is shunned, pitied, and stereotyped. I've always been able to relate to Elphaba because, though my body isn't green, it's different. I always try to keep it hidden. Simply put, I'm a fan of Wicked because the play embodies a sense of resilience instilled within me since childhood. In the last nine years, I’ve had eight extensive surgeries, seventeen tumors removed from my body, and I’ve relearned how to walk five separate times. As one of the only Broadway shows with disabled representation, I saw myself within Nessa Rose's wheels as she rolled across the stage. I felt her pain when others tried to push her chair without her consent, and I understood her desire for a "normal life." But what I find comfort in is Elphaba's perspective of her sister's disability. She sees ableism for what it is, and that image was a strong sentiment throughout my childhood. Literature, songs, and plays such as "Wicked" played a decisive role in teaching me to value myself as a child. Like Elphaba, to get through life, I'm defying gravity. I'm redefining what disabled excellence means to me, and I won't take another person's perception of my body as "ideal" or "truthful." I get to decide what good and evil is---what good and bad looks like. People can shriek and cry at the sight of my evil scars indefinitely, but I don't internalize their incessant noise. Instead, the red, wormlike structures across my body are battle wounds. I'm proud to be a warrior.

I'm the subject of a mining expedition. My chest caves in on itself. My brain tunnels through a deep cavern excavated out of my heart. My lungs struggle to breathe oxygen amid the overpowering fumes coming up the central shaft of my spine. "Ugh, not this again," I think, but all my thoughts sound like jumbled internal screams. I'm all too familiar with this feeling—it's a panic attack. I stand motionless in the hospital cubical, unable to think straight enough to find a quiet place for my emotions to finish drilling through my veins. Ever since being diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress seven years ago, panic attacks have strip-mined their way through my life, periodically plowing my emotional state. I have a genetic bone disorder that has forced me into eight significant operations in the past 9 years. I practically grew up in a hospital with countless procedures, appointments, and treatments. I carry my PTS everywhere I go. Attacks and flashbacks can hit me anywhere. Sometimes, I'll sit down in my chair for class and instantaneously be transported into the "big red chair" that my pediatrician made me sit in while she forced a sharp feeding tube down my esophagus. As the rest of my class diligently takes notes on calculous functions, I physically feel a foreign plastic entity slowly crawl down my throat and painfully settle into the crevices within my stomach. That's the weird thing about flashbacks: I know I'm in class, and my chair isn't red, but no amount of common sense can convince my mind that I'm safe—a miner who's terrible at her job. But no one else knows I'm in the mines. No one gets it, but it's not like they can. Children with PTS are naturally isolated. Support groups can help; however, they're not nearly enough to make us feel included in daily life. My friends think I'm just a "picky eater" when in reality, roughly textured foods bring me back to the nights spent in the Orthopedic-unit, where nurses forced me to eat prickly, scratchy, or downright disgusting foods to ensure my stomach could function. If I'm late to class, my teachers assume I'm lazy or talking to my peers, but I'm actually in the bathroom crying because the school's tile pattern resembles the one in my surgeon's office. One thought has always loomed in my head: how am I supposed to explain to those around me what I'm going through without triggering another attack, or worse, risking that they see me as weak? This past year, I decided I would work on my mental health. I sat down with professionals, sought treatment, and began opening up to those important to me about what I was dealing with. The responses were overwhelmingly positive. With every conversation, discussion, or coping strategy, I learned to reassemble parts of myself. I took the fractured cavities and began to fill them back up with sand, a common practice of the excavation industry in the United States. I've come to terms with the fact that my stress is complicated. I've lost relationships but simultaneously gained lifelong friends. I often find myself unable to breathe or flashbacked into periods of my life where I've been denied autonomy. Some look at my countless scars and think of my body as "disgusting" or "unproductive," but I see them as testimonies to my resilience, the power I have to break and come back again. I persevere through needle upon needle, scar after scar, and exam after lab. It doesn't matter how hard my disease swings its pickaxe at me; I get back up again. I want to have a career helping those like me. When I study international relations and work for the United Nations, I plan to focus on diplomatic solutions to aid children with mental health struggles. I am incredibly lucky to live in a country and community that offers support and services to struggling youth, but most of the world is not granted that privilege. Most mines never see daylight. Every time I experience a panic attack, I find my ground within my surroundings. I focus on the controllable, the present. The stress from my past can't control my future because, unlike a mining quarry, I can replenish my ores. I am the subject of a never-ending but always-changing mining expedition. But I also think that my PTS has granted me a unique perspective on life; my experiences with mental health have taught me how badly I want to live.

The words are dancing. They swirl across the page, running away from my overworked eyes. I'm tired, frustrated, and feeling helpless. I hate reading. I always have, and I always will. In the 1st grade, I was placed into an English Second Language Class. I speak English as my first language, though, so I'm pretty sure my Elementary school missed that one. Turns out, teachers placed "problematic" and "inattentive" students in the ESL class to lighten their workload. In the 2nd grade, my school counselor explained to me that I could have dyslexia. Following the label of "learning disability," a wave of academic stress crashed over me. I worked for hours every day to learn how to read simple words, but I still fell behind my peers rapidly. Then came my godsend: assistive technology. In the third grade, I was granted the privilege of accommodations and a 504 plan. I dictated my essays instead of handwriting them, had a Siri-like voice read my assignments out loud to me, and took extra time on tests to fully understand what each question was asking me. Following the changes, I immediately entered the accelerated academic program. Now, I'm a high school senior in the top 1% of her class at one of the most competitive schools in the nation. I'm the first person at my school to skip a grade in History, and I scored 1570/1600 on my SAT. I was 2 out of 460,000 students to be recognized as having a perfect paper on a national history exam. And I did all that with a disability. But how? I learned to cater to my strengths. I have to work twice as hard to read a sentence. Simply typing this essay right now, I'm double-checking every word I've written. Reading will never be easy, but I'm good at analyzing text. I can argue plot points, figurative devices, and tone like no man's business. When I write essays or complete assignments, I focus on the impact of my work rather than the niche grammar and punctuation rules that I will never be able to understand. I'm studying International Affairs in college, and eventually, I'll serve my country as a diplomat, fighting for the human rights of those worldwide and spreading awareness about education and the benefits of helping children with learning disabilities. Growing up in the American education system has taught me one thing: never to allow others' doubts to deter me from creating a future for myself and my community. I can't even count how many teachers have been shocked to discover that I have difficulties in the classroom. After educators learn about my accommodations, some rant about how modifying their class isn't possible, while others cast disapproving looks at me in silence. 11 Advanced Placement classes later, I hope I've proved some of my teachers wrong and maybe spread awareness about the importance of educating students with disabilities. Words dance around me endlessly, but I've learned to bust my moves to their tunes.

I'm four years old, it's 1 AM, and I've lodged myself onto my dresser to look out my window in awe at 20,000 Christmas lights. The multicolored display dances throughout my yard, lights pulsing in and out of my view. I again lose myself in the twinkling stars, playful characters, and color-changing bulbs. "Nothing in the world can beat this magic," I think. Unfortunately, I knock over a toy and make a loud noise, waking everyone in my family up. "Tina! What are you doing awake?" my mom came running into my room, yelling at me. "Go to bed!" When I was four years old, the environmental impact of tens of thousands of bulbs never crossed my mind. I wrapped tree upon a tree with incandescent lights, only thinking about the sight created. Thirteen years later, our neighborhood Christmas Light display is still a longstanding tradition in my family. It holds immense value to my community, but some significant changes have occurred since I co-opted the operation. Most notably, I've made the display more sustainable. The most significant contributor to an individual's carbon footprint is electricity production from fossil fuels. Luckily, a few simple steps make limiting electricity consumption incredibly straightforward. My household light display has changed all incandescent light bulbs to LED lights, decreasing energy consumption by over 90% and increasing efficiency by 60%. Each LED bulb lasts about 25 times longer than competing alternatives, decreasing emissions within the production process. We invested massively into the new technology, and eventually, every light in our yard twinkled LED. This change was taken inside the home, too: all our interior lighting was converted to LED fixtures. It's simply just cleaner light. Our display has undergone hundreds of transitions over the years, featuring multiple types of icicle lights, characters, and even a forty-foot-tall shooting star. People slow down to coast past our house (hey, maybe that reduces some emissions, too!), and children beg their parents to walk through the magical fixtures. When you're outside for seemingly monumental amounts of time putting up lights, people stop by and ask for advice. We talk about the benefits of LED lighting, the importance of keeping water outside closed circuits, and, of course, strategic color display. We started the transition to more sustainable energy, and our community caught on. Now, the neighborhood strictly uses LED lights, and I even offer to help put them up. Climate strategists theorize that global warming has tipping points: fundamental changes to the Earth's atmospheric composition that we cannot recover from. If too much carbon enters the atmosphere, the Earth's systems will no longer be able to respond or function accordingly as they overheat. We have to reduce our footprints but, more importantly, find ways within our communities to work together. One house changing a standard practice might not do much, but entire neighborhoods reducing energy consumption can considerably dent CO2 released. I still love Christmas lights, just like I did when I was four years old. But now, I understand the importance of practicing community traditions sustainably to limit my energy consumption.

“See, look here,” my doctor pointed at my X-rays. “These are your tumors—you have hundreds of them, but don’t freak out because they’re benign.” I’m eight years old and in a cramped cubicle at Shadyside Hospital. I look at the deep blue screen; a lumpy mess covering my bones stares back at me. “Tina, you’ve got Multiple Hereditary Exostoses (MHE), a genetic, physical disability. As you grow, these tumors will too. We’ll eventually remove the bumps that cause the most pain.” A week after being diagnosed, my mother and I sat down with my third-grade teacher. “There’s nothing special about Tina,” he said, ignoring my presence in the room. “She’s slow. She struggles to keep up. She can’t write. She’s years behind. I honestly don’t see how a few classroom procedures could help.” My teacher would soon witness the wonders of support through a 504 plan. Within two months of our first meeting, I began receiving accommodations that would completely alter the course of my education. I typed essays instead of handwriting them, dictated answers to assistive technology, and had extra time on my math tests when my shoulder gave out. My elementary school discovered the shell-shocking phenomenon that a physically challenged, disabled kid could be smart. “Off to the gifted program,” they said, but my diagnosis loomed over my head everywhere I went. In the last nine years, I’ve had eight extensive surgeries, seventeen tumors removed from my body, and I’ve relearned how to walk five separate times. I learned how to listen to the broken language of my body. In a culture that tells us to ignore pain for the sake of productivity, I refuse to fit the mold of the most ideal, able-bodied student. With every translation of the lost words within my bones, I honor them more. Marching to bumpy anthems, I keep trying, fighting, and walking. While taking 7 AP tests a month after my ankle was reassembled during my junior year, I developed a catchphrase: Just watch me. Throughout high school, I’ve acquired four months of medically excused absences. Questions following me from peers and advisors can be easily decoded: how can she do everything she does while crippled? For answers, I tune into my bones—their whispered words of spite and songs sung, yearning for knowledge. My definition of disabled excellence is reclaiming the destructive ableism that I have the privilege of molding to shape my life. Others see my countless scars and label my body as broken and unproductive. I view my battle wounds as testimonies to my resilience—the power I have to break and come back again. My body has always complicated simple tasks. Writing hurts my shoulder; walking hurts my legs. MHE causes constant chronic pain and fatigue, never granting me the privilege of wasting time when I feel well. My doctor once told me that strength isn’t the ability to lift boulders; it’s our persistence to continue with what is less than ideal. I fight to juggle my studies, extracurriculars, and social life with my disease. I honestly wonder who I would be without MHE or if I’d still have the same resilience, work ethic, and community. I persevere. I find power within my disabled identity—a unique lived experience that constructs how I view my reality. Each and every day is a gift given to me, wrapped in perfectly crippled paper. AP scholar with distinction, sixty thousand dollars raised for research, and a national ranking in debate later, if I had to relive that conversation with my third-grade teacher, I’d tell him one thing. Just watch me!

Only 45% of a McDonald's Chicken McNugget is actual chicken. Hundreds of additives, compounds, and preservatives combine to form a mushy "chicken paste," which will become the food of over 276 million Americans annually. But though McDonald's is a profit-driven enterprise, it overshadows the most significant production cost: human lives. Of all things, Chicken McNuggets sparked my love for studying international relations and opened my eyes to the need for systemic change. The fast food industry exploits nature to construct profits. McDonald's pays poultry workers less than two cents for every dollar of profit. Coerced prison labor supplements the production process, with inmates earning a maximum salary of 11 cents an hour. Conditions for all workers are immensely hazardous, and selectively bred chickens destroy the environment, requiring enormous amounts of toxic chemicals to reach their full size. Now, chickens are bred to the point where they can hardly walk, and toxins from coops cause immense harm to workers' health. Every aspect of international affairs relates to producing Chicken McNuggets. The violent exploitation of workers in the Global South, constant corporate dodging of international regulation standards, and the never-ending idealization of profit above all else come together to form six nuggets packaged in a bright red and yellow box. That image drew me to study international relations. My understanding of diplomacy isn't merely found in adherence to international protocol and law, but rather in valuing people at the individual level beyond the cheapened system we call the world we live in today. I will be a humanitarian diplomat, dedicating my life to fighting for those we often forget about. In college, I'll study Global Affairs because the field acts as a framework for advocating for ethical practices and human dignity in a world increasingly driven by profit incentives. I'll then serve our government in the State Department and build experience working with foreign affairs. But wherever my career may lead me, I'll remain an advocate. Imprinting the humanitarian message into the canvas of our discourse, I will be fueled by a passion for protesting the practices of corporations like McDonalds. When practicing diplomacy, I will never stop fighting for the exploited, underpaid, and under-served workers. To me, a smile on a nugget box is never worth the lives lost to sustain it.

I’m five years old and tie-dying T-shirts in my front yard far past my bedtime because my body is a walking cancer scare. But I don’t know about my body yet, and I don’t know why my family cares so much about pouring streams of color onto race shirts. All I know is that tomorrow is race day: the annual 5K for Pittsburgh Cure Sarcoma (PCS). Twelve races later, I’ve literally grown up within PCS. I have a genetic disease that causes me to grow hundreds of benign bone tumors. Unfortunately, the “benign” part isn't guaranteed forever, and I’m susceptible to developing chondrosarcoma—a type of cancer with no effective chemotherapy treatments. The work of Pittsburgh Cure Sarcoma was a given in my home, always happening as I was growing up. PCS funds research to grant kids like me the hope of a more secure future. I never really got the whole deal with the annual PCS race fundraiser until I went through my first major shoulder surgery. Waking up in the busy ortho OR at Children’s Hospital, I looked around at the other children, test tubes, machinery, and tears. In that moment, I realized that I had a real avenue to help save people from awful tumor related diseases. When it clicked, and I was mature enough to fully understand what we were fighting for, I doubled down on my duties for PCS. As the only young voice on the PCS committee, it struck me that our dozens of race day tents lacked any kind of entertainment for the hundreds of children attending with their families every year. Challenge accepted! I got to work and designed a designated kids’ area with Spider-Man, snow cones, mascots from Pittsburgh sports teams, princesses, bounce houses, cornhole, and balloon artists. Vendors and company officials would come to the North Park Boathouse looking for “Kristina Wisniewski” and would shockingly be met by a 4 foot 10-inch-high school student. Every year, the kids’ area grows, and so does the number of months of preparation, community sponsorships, and race attendees. I work hard to make the kids’ attractions bigger and better than before. Now, some attend the race and donate solely to give their kids a day of fun; for children who have lost loved ones to sarcoma, providing a princess is the least we can do to help keep a smile on their faces. PCS is a part of who I am. The race committee is a group of 12 close-knit volunteers who have dedicated countless hours raising awareness and granting 2.5 million dollars for sarcoma research. To date, my team has raised over $60,000, and I couldn’t be more proud and thankful for the friends and family who come out to support us annually. This year, our solely volunteer led group organized a race that raised $380,000. That’s insane. Much love to everyone and my family at PCS, as we have built the foundations for a better tomorrow for our community. At PCS, belonging to a community is serving one.