My field of study is Speech-Language Pathology. I seek to give voice to those who have gone unheard and unnoticed. I want to work in a community where my services will make a real impact and benefit the lives of those who live there. My goal is to live near a city so that I can help as many people as possible, whether it be in person or through zoom. I want to travel and meet people who need my help and be able to serve them where ever they are most comfortable.

I got my first guitar when I was seven, as a birthday present. It happened to be an acoustic guitar that was very difficult for little fingers to play, but that did not stop me. My grandma took me to guitar lessons once a week. He wanted to teach me classics, I wanted to learn Foo Fighters songs. I did not have much patience for lessons, but I loved playing. I have always been better at self-teaching than learning from others. I took Trombone in band during school, then went back to the guitar for my last years of high school playing in Jazz band. I had never learned bar chords before then, and had to teach myself on the fly. I learned a lot from my time in jazz band, and met my best friend there. Music runs in my family. My great great uncle and aunt are concert violinists. When my grandma told them I wanted to learn to fiddle, they sent me an old violin of theirs. It’s one of my most prized possessions. Before his passing, my great great uncle would give me a violin lesson once a year at thanksgiving, when they were visiting from Nebraska. I’ve never been very good, but I am still trying. I want to learn to play for him, since he helped me so much. My dad is also a musician. He plays bass, guitar, harmonica, banjo, and more. We always joke about starting a family band if we can get one of my daughters to play the drums. Even my husband is a musician, a professional singer. He mostly does show tunes, but I’m sure I could get him to sing some of my songs if i am ever brave enough to let him see them. I want to get good enough at the instruments I have so that I can teach my daughters when they get older. I want to surround them with music so they can find solace in it as I did. I got through my teenage years writing songs, putting lyrics to my struggles. I want to provide as many outlets for them as I can do that they do not have to struggle to find what helps them.

I have been mentally ill for most of my life. I remember it starting when I moved from my hometown of Branson to a tiny, conservative town. I lost all my friends and had to start over from scratch. As I got older and discovered I was trans, bisexual, and autistic I got more and more different. I did not like sports, and this town revolves around football. I got more depressed as I became more different. The only place I found real friendship and solace was theatre. When I was 10 I went to see a community production of “If a Man Answers” at the local theatre. My cousin was in the show, and it made me think that I myself could do it too. The next year I got the part of King Oompa Loompa in Charlie and the Chocolate factory. I continued doing every show I possibly could. For a little while, I did not have to feel different. I was someone else, someone who belonged and knew what to say and do. Then I graduated high school. I lost all my friends again. I was home with a baby at 17, doing online classes and working evenings. I still did shows when I could, but it was difficult with everything else I had to balance. The post partum depression hit me hard. I was already in therapy for gender dysphoria, but it was not enough. I started working out obsessively, and it seemed to help take the edge off at least. I’ve struggled with depression, generalized anxiety disorder, and PTSD for many years now. I’ve found ways to get through, and started on medication and weekly therapy. It is still a struggle to get up every day. “That’s the hard part, you have to do it everyday.” I am studying to go into the healthcare field. I believe my own personal experiences with mental illness will help me to be sympathetic to others who I will help in my line of work. I want to be the person I wish I had growing up.

These are my beans! I have 6 cats altogether. In the order we got them, their names are October, Katya, Juno, Lemony Snickrets (Lemmy), Butters, and Adelaide. I love them all so much. I hope to one live comfortably enough that I can afford to spend my extra time and income rescuing and fostering cats in my home. Adelaide was supposed to be a foster, but she’s looking more like ours every day. I want to help every cat that I possibly can, and I think I am off to a good start with these sweet babies.

My mental health has had some highs and a lot of lows. I grew up different. I knew I was different from the people around me, but never had words for it. As I get older, more layers to it appear. At the age of 8 I started to experience depression. I moved away from all of my friends to a small town. In this town everyone made friends in kindergarten and were not likely to take on any new members. Luckily, another kid my age was going through the exact same thing. Her name was Kaelyn. Now Kaelyn did lots of sports, so she did not have a hard time making friends. I have never been the athletic type, so I did not make friends as easily. I stayed depressed for a long time. As an adult my mom told me that moving me to this town was her biggest regret. When I was 16 I discovered that I was transgender. I had a baby with my abusive now ex-boyfriend. He would come over to talk to me on the evenings, and he was the only person who ever stopped by to see me. This was the worst depression of my life. What led me to discover I was trans was actually breastfeeding. I suffered from D-MER (Dysphoric milk ejection reflex), and would have suicidal ideation every time I had to feed my daughter. This is what made me decide my chest had to come off, and I could not live with having it. Shortly after I came out my ex broke it off with me. I was crushed at the time, but ultimately it ended up being the best thing for me. Upon coming out I sought out a therapist so that I could start hormone replacement therapy. She was great. Together we discovered that I was bipolar, and that much of my overreaction to being broken up with was related to chemical imbalance. This made a lot of sense to me, and helped explain why my family told me I was so dramatic. Now, several years later, I’m seeing a new therapist due to insurance changes. We’re working through the trauma I received from my abusive relationship. The more that I have been talking to her the more o have noticed that my behavior patterns are very similar to individuals who are on the autism spectrum. I can not say for sure as I do not have any official diagnosis, but this would really make sense as the final layer of what makes me feel so different. I always felt like an outsider. I could cling to other groups but I would always drift away after a while, not really having anywhere I fully belong. I think a lot of people with mental illness, not cishet, and neurodivegent people feel this way. This is a big part of why I want to be a Speech Language Pathologist. I want to give voices to those who normally would not have their ideas heard. I want to help people feel less like they are alone in the world. I want to help people discover their passions and give them the tools to communicate about them, whatever that means to that person.

I have been surviving mental health problems for as long as I can remember. They have been exacerbated by traumas like abuse and abandonment. The one thing that really shifted my perspective on life was when I got fired for being transgender. Being transgender in a small town I dealt with my fair share of transphobia and general negativity toward my existence. I was always under the impression, however, that at the very least I could not be fired for it. At my first job I was very worried about it when I came out, but it ended up not being an issue. My coworkers supported me and still do. In 2017 I took a summer job to help fund my upcoming top surgery (Double Mastectomy). My mom runs a daycare and needed someone to work in the mornings. I applied, and was treated as all the other applicants were. I just happened to be the best for the job, and I was elated. I knew I loved kids, but this experience really showed me how much I love working with them. I loved interacting with them and hearing their unique perspectives. I can not fathom how they had that much energy at 7 a.m., but I was always pleasantly surprised when they dragged me over to help them play basketball. I was having a great time, doing something I loved, and wanting to ask for more hours. Then the roof caved in. This daycare happens to rent space from a Methodist church, one my grandpa used to be the pastor in actually. I had gone there for years as a child, I knew the staff by name. The new pastor took one look at me and told my mom that she had to fire me. My mom came home that day in tears. She sat me down and explained what happened. Even though on the official report it says I was fired because of nepotism, he told my mom he would not have cared about the nepotism if I was cis. This experience shook me. No longer did I get to live in my bubble and pretend the world was a safe, accepting place for me. This was the first major dose of transphobia I had experienced. I was heartbroken, so was my mom, and my daughter who went to that daycare at the time. My grandparents were still part of the church too, and they did not know what to do, all their friends were there. The church treated me like I was a leper who would infect their kids. I fell into a valley of depression, now fully aware that the world was not looking out for me. I did not stay down for long. I was working on my associates degree, and I decided if I wanted to work with kids that I needed to prove I belonged there. So I took a class about autism spectrum disorder. I loved it, and decided to continue down that path and become a certified behavior technician. Upon more research I found out about the controversy surrounding Applied Behavior Analysis, and decided to go in a different direction. I have always loved studying language, and I love working with kids, especially kids on the spectrum and with Down’s syndrome. I decided I wanted to go back to school to become a Speech-Language Pathologist. That is where I am at now, studying all the time to learn to help others. I cared about school before, but never this much. I am passionate about this degree. I need to have the credentials to prove that I, as a transgender man, am qualified to work with kids. I study hard to make sure I can be the best Speech-Language Pathologist they could ask for. I love this subject, and I know I am going to love working with people to improve their communication skills.

Transgender artists are finally starting to scratch the surface of the media scope, and I want to be a part of that movement. Much of transgender art that is seen in music is angry and sad. Most of what is seen on TV is educational or trans people being mocked. Trans people deserve to have their stories told in a positive light, and one that does not solely focus on their trans identity. I am a 22 year-old trans man, and my life is made up of much more than just my transition. Transition stories should be told, because if gives younger transgender or questioning people an idea of what directions they can go in, and shows them that they are not different or wrong for wanting changes to be made, but trans people are more than the surgeries they receive. There ought to be more stories where transgender people are allowed to exist as people and not as a wealth of information about transgender information. As a painter I have documented my mental illness and how it has affected my own personal perspective on myself throughout my adult life. I hope that other transgender people can find solace and relatability in my art, and that it might bring me closer to my community. I want to continue to make art for my community. I want to create art that provoked the cis community to ask questions, and makes the trans community feel more comfortable being out and proud in today’s world. Thank you for your time.

I am currently studying to be a speech language pathologist, but in my free time I pursue my passions in language learning and painting. I want to make the world a better place by helping others to be able to communicate their thoughts and feelings in ways they previously could not, and I feel that I can use my skills in the arts and language to help a wider variety of people. Some patients may be nonverbal but could paint masterpieces of their own design. Some patients can be consistently misdiagnosed because of a language barrier they have with their providers. My hope is to learn as much as possible so that I am able to help as many people as possible. I love learning, and I want to apply that in ways that are beneficial to others and their habilitation or rehabilitation. This grant would help take some of the stress off of making sure I have enough money for school, allowing me to pursue my interests more extensively and ultimately be a better, more well rounded Speech-Language Pathologist, artist, and person.

This is my family. My husband, myself, and our two daughters. I am so thankful for all of them. I am thankful for my youngest daughter for being such a light in this dark, difficult time. She is always smiling, singing, and laughing. I am thankful for my oldest daughter for challenging me. Her life is hard right now. Like everyone else’s, but she never allows me to go without thinking about whether or not something is fair. She keeps me grounded. Finally I am thankful for my husband for always being there for me. Through top surgery, through job loss, through everything horrible thing life has thrown at us over the past four years. He has always been right by my side, ready to cheer me up and make me a snack. This year has been hard on all of us. I am so great full to have such a lovely, feisty, caring, sweet, and kind family to help me through it.

I am well intertwined with the small business community . I have worked for a family owned small business for five years, I have my own small business as an independent artist, and shop at local mom and pop stores for groceries whenever I can. I want my money to send kids to space camp, not line the pockets of the 1%. Since I was 17 I have worked at Taco Palace. A business owned by a couple the same age as my own parents. Their oldest daughter and second daughter are two of my closest friends. Working there is truly like working with a family. I love working for a business that cares about my ability to spend time with my kids and take them to appointments. I love working with a family who will bend over backwards to make sure my shift is covered if there is an emergency, and will even check to see if everyone is ok. A lot of people could not say that about the corporations they work for, but I am very fortunate to be in the minority on this one. I run a small business called Zaid Ryan Art. I started it to showcase the art I was doing, and then started selling my art as I improved. Ideally, I would be able to afford to paint full time and go to college so I can have my own schedule, have time for my kids, and earn a living doing something that I am passionate about. While I love working at Taco Palace, I would be so proud if I could support my family with my art. The small town that I live in has very few stores, so I try to shop the farmer’s markets whenever I am not working, but my favorite place to shop is Sunny Gardens. It is a little Mennonite store off of the highway about ten minutes outside of town. They have lots of fresh produce, canned goods, and baking supplies. It’s almost entirely outside, so even during the pandemic it is one place I can safely take my daughters to pick out some healthy snacks for the week. Plus, I know that the money I spend there is going to someone who needs it. Working for and owning small businesses really changes the way you think about how you spend money. You spend your money the way you wish others would, supporting those who truly need it. If everyone made an effort to support small businesses, more quality products could be made rather than cheap, quick to produce ones. More craftsmanship could be seen, more attention to detail. I hope to one day live in a world where small businesses can get the support and attention they deserve, and for making a living from your craft not to be seen as a pipe dream.

Right now, my experiences outside of the classroom are limited. I spend most of my time at work or at home studying, trying to keep my family safe. However, before all of this happened I was heavily involved in community theater. I started in the community theater when I was just eleven-years-old. I loved it. I had moved from my hometown to a small, conservative community. By doing plays I could be my self. I wanted to be as involved as possible. I worked directing, designing and building sets, even joint the board of directors for our local theater once I was an adult. Working in theater developed my social skills. I became more outgoing, could easily make friends, and always had the group engaged in come way as long as I was within those walls. Once I stepped outside again, however, I went back to my introverted, depressed self. Managing productions while in college was a struggle. I stuck to more summer shows so my time was not so stretched, but I made it work anyway. I needed the creative outlet to balance the bland work that is general education requirements. I was in college then because my family told me to be, so doing plays gave me a purpose where college did not. Once I finished my general education and found what I wanted to do though, I started to fall in love with college. My involvement with theater stopped when work and college combined became overwhelming. I want to get back into theater, but with the current state of the world that is not a possibility. So for now I’ve been focusing on my other two passions, painting and language learning. I am currently focused on Spanish, but I have spent a considerable amount of time on Italian and a bit of time on French. I absolutely love learning languages. I have as long as I can remember. I have a short attention span, so I have not gained fluency in any one of them yet, but I have been putting serious effort into Spanish and believe I can reach fluency by next year. I want to learn as many languages as possible so that I can help more people as a speech-language pathologist. The more languages I understand, the more people I can help. The more people I can help, the more unique individuals can have their voices heard. It is so important to me that everyone get to have their opinion voiced in whatever way works best for them. My other passion is painting. When I am not on stage I express myself best visually. I have done an art therapy series in the past and am doing a new one currently to worked through my anxiety and PTSD. I love putting images in my head onto a canvas. Manipulating the paint into my own world of art is a very therapeutic process for me. I spend so much time studying and cleaning up after kids, and it’s nice to have a break doing something that is just for me. It is my release to help my brain shut off and stop studying for a while. My passions are primarily creative ones, with education mixed in. I care deeply about helping others, and making myself more available to helping others is how I spend a lot of my free time. Building social skills, language skills, and creative skills are how I spend all my free time. I hope that all of this will pay off when I become a certified speech-language pathologist, but truth be told I love learning and I do not ever intend to stop.

My dad left a week before my first birthday. I do not remember what he looked like or sounded like. My mom raised me with the help of her parents. My grandpa was a minister for the Methodist church, so we moved around to a new church every few years, snd a new parsonage. My mom had no problem being a single mother, but she was well aware of how people would look at her for it. So she made sure my hair was always brushed, my fingernails were clean, and my clothes matched, no matter how I protested. She did not want to give anyone another reason to look at us differently. In middle school I feel victim to depression. This was largely due to gender dysphoria, but I did not realize that until later. My depression and anxiety manifested largely as anger. I blamed that anger on my biological father. It was easy, he was not around to defend himself. Every heartbreak, random bout of anxiety, pitfall, and shortcoming I had could be indirectly traced back to him giving me his subpar genetics. This anger I projected onto him was really anger at myself and the world around me that I could not control. When I was ten years old my mom reconnected with a friend she had in high school. They started dating and got married when I was eleven. My new step-dad had video games, which I had previously not been allowed to play, so we hit it off. He was always more like an older brother than a father figure, though. My grandpa has always been the father figure in my life. Fast forward to my being 15. I was in a sexually and verbally abusive relationship. I ended up getting pregnant and having a baby at 16. We stayed together for a while, but frequently broke up. Even when he was around he did not help. I still lived with my parents, it otherwise felt completely alone. All my friends stopped coming over to see me because “I was busy with the baby.” The only person I saw besides my mom and step dad was a person who would constantly pressure me and make me feel worthless. I came out as transgender in October when I was 17. We broke up, then dated in secret for a year before he dumped me for good in November when I was 18. Now I was really a single parent, not just feeling like one. I was in college, so my parents let me live at home. My daughter hated sleeping unless I laid down with her, so it was hard to get any sleep for the first couple of years. I worked, took classes online, and took care of my daughter. End of list. I was emotionally and physically drained all the time. I love her so much, but raising kids is hard. I only worked part time so I was home alone with my daughter most of the time. Being a person with an anxiety disorder, unstructured time is especially hard for me to cope with. So I worked out obsessively so combat the mental issues I was facing. I started dating a few weeks after the break up. Really I just wanted to learn how to talk to people, since I never got the chance being in a relationship all through high school. I met someone on Tinder, who would later become my husband. I was not a single parent as long as my mother was. I was only truly a single parent for about a year. My now husband stepped up and stepped in. I can not fathom the strength it took her to raise me on her own for all those years. I am forever great full that she did it. Having an absent father and a strong mother was much better for my development than having a father who was in and out of my life as he pleased. I only want what is best for my kids, and for me that meant marrying the person who cared enough to be there for them. Being a single parent was hard, and I applaud those who fine the strength to manage it.

The greatest achievement of my life thus far is living as an out and proud transgender man in a largely conservative community. There have been many roadblocks, as well as victories on my path. My successes have had attempts to be overshadowed by people who I thought were part of my support system, but I have never let them stop me. At age 14 I was in an abusive relationship. I thought it was normal to be treated as an object. I thought it was normal to dread spending time with the person you love. I thought it was normal to wish you were a man, and to be told that you could not be anything more than a housewife. Having a baby at 16 by someone who cared nothing about me taught me that my only true supporters were my family. Breastfeeding that baby taught me that I hated my chest and needed to get rid of it as soon as possible. At the age of 17 I came out to my family. They appeared supportive, but there was a lot of hidden doubts. They would talk to me about how I was in a transitional stage of my life and should be rash. They would tell me about how hard it was for all of them, as if I was not going through this on a much larger scale. Over time, with a lot of love and pronoun correction, we reached the point we are at today. My first major milestone was getting my name legally changed. On the night before my hearing, my partner of 4 years broke up with me over text message because it was too much for him. I showed up to my hearing with a straight face, and my composure never broke. Two weeks following this I got to start on hormone replacement therapy. I went to all my appointments alone, and got my first shot of testosterone on my own. I wanted to celebrate, go out to dinner or just be with people who cared about me. Instead, I called my mom from the car and let her know. She was happy for me, but still my family was not sure about all of this and did not understand how important this moment was to me. That, and still going through a major heartbreak, made for one of the loneliest moments of my life. Another year passed and I was on the road to getting top surgery. My insurance plan covered it, but because it was through an organization through the state of Missouri, a conservative state, they refused to cover it. I was heartbroken. I cried to the insurance handler on the phone, who perplexedly gave me the tools to appeal that decision. Which I did, twice. My persistence paid off and in September of 2017 I finally got that weight off my chest. I felt brand new, and so happy. Living with depression on top of being different in a town where different is not allowed was hard. Now though, I had a body that matched my soul and a new partner to support me. My new partner, Graham, moved in with me hurriedly due to his family despising me, and referring to me as an “It”. Due to their views on my identity they treated him in an abusive manner. We moved in together less than a month after my surgery. Around this time I got a job at my mom’s daycare to help me make a little extra money to save up for transitioning. I only worked a couple of hours every morning with young children during breakfast time. The daycare happened to be renting out space inside of a church. The pastor saw me with the kids on my first day, and insisted I be fired. I was devastated. They even said outright that it was because of my identity, but later reneged on that, claiming it was nepotism. I love working with kids, but that experience really shook me. I knew in order to ever work with kids I would have to be a trained professional of some kind to prove I belonged there. My final step of my transition so far has been to back pedal a bit. My now husband and I decided we wanted to have a baby. I had a daughter at 16 from my previous (abusive) relationship, snd we felt that it would be best to have them closer together rather than farther apart. So I went off of testosterone, and got pregnant within two months. We were so happy. I was so sick. It was wonderful. I got a lot of weird looks. People who ordinarily support me made snide comments behind my back. I did not care, I wanted this baby more than anything. Now she is a sweet little seven month old who never stops smiling and squealing. I know that I am luckier than most with the support system that I have. I have still faced obstacles I did not think I could overcome, and some that I am still overcoming every day. I hope to earn a degree so that I can be a success and show other young trans people that they can be successful too. I hope to work as a speech-language pathologist and help people from all walks of life speak their truth in whatever way suits them best.