| Alex Myers | |
| Birth Date: | c.1979 |
| Birth Place: | Paris, Maine, U.S. |
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Alex Myers (born c.1979) is an American author, educator and transgender rights activist.
Myers was born in Paris, Maine.[1] As a teenager, he attended Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. He obtained a bachelor's degree from Harvard University, where he studied near Eastern languages and civilizations.[2] While at Harvard he worked to have gender identity added to the school's nondiscrimination clause. Myers obtained an MA in religion from Brown University. He later studied fine arts at the Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Myers teaches English at Phillips Exeter Academy. His first book Revolutionary was released in 2014. Based on the life of Deborah Sampson, the focus of the novel is a woman who disguises herself as a man in order to fight in the American Revolutionary War.[3] [4] [5] Released in 2019, his novel Continental Divide follows Ron Bancroft who grows up as a tomboy, comes out as a teenager and travels west to find himself.[6] [7] In an interview with New Hampshire Public Radio Myers discussed how his own experience with transitioning was reflected in the main character Ron in his novel Continental Divide explaining: "The parallels in my own life would be a rural childhood, a feeling of always being a boy despite society telling me that I was a girl, and then going off to a more urban college experience with a bit more exposure to a range of differences."[8] Myers' third book The Story of Silence (2020) is a retelling of Le Roman de Silence.[9]
Myers is a transgender man.[10] He began transitioning in 1995 during his senior year at Phillips Exeter Academy.[11] Having studied the first three years as a woman, he returned to campus senior year with his hair cut and requested that he be called Alex. The transition made him the first openly transgender student in the school's history.[12] [13]