Milo Mazurkiewicz

Milo Andrea Mazurkiewicz (28 January 1995 – 6 May 2019) was a Polish queer activist, linguist, and information systems technician. They used the Polish neutral pronoun ono and accepted the use of feminine pronouns. They were known for their humorous invention of the mathematical constant "ęć", where ( is pronounced as in Polish, and when combined with "ęć" creates "pięć" , the Polish word for five).

Personal life On 18 Apr 2018 Milo published a Twitter thread describing their relationship with gender:I have a story to tell you.

For the most of my life, I didn't really *get* how it is to be transgender.

The “standard” “cis” ways of visualizing it didn't speak to me, as I didn't find myself particularly connected to masculinity or find issue with having to live not as a man.

Assuming that what I felt is what most people feel, I grew convinced that, while some people might experience a profound connection to their birth gender, or to some other gender, the norm is not to have any at all.

I grew skeptical of notions of “cisgender” and “transgender”.

If you asked me a few years ago, I might have called myself “agender”. But then I might have called most of society “agender” at that time.

It didn't occur to me that it might be just me being the exception and not the rule.

And then, years later, I started poking around and for the first time in my life found something that really resonated with me. I started reading trans people describing their experiences and it was like finding a missing piece.

No, the society is cis, it's just me that's not.

If you don't feel like “woman” or “man”, whichever you were given, fully describes you, and if you feel like your biology is the only connection you have to your gender, your name, your pronouns…

You might want to poke around. You might end up a happier person. Mazurkiewicz came out to their father as non-binary in 2018 and was met with acceptance; however, their mother was reluctant to acknowledge their gender.

Information about their death appeared on 17 May on the Facebook page of the Stonewall Group, which reported that the activist died on 6 May after they jumped from the Łazienkowski bridge in Warsaw. Their death has been attributed to the high rates of transphobia in Poland.

A widely publicized post Milo wrote for their Facebook account on 2 May illustrated their state of mind during their final days:I'm fed up. I'm fed up with being treated like a piece of shit. I'm fed up with people (psychologists, doctors, therapists) telling me I can't be who I am because I don't look like that. Treating me as if it was all in my head and telling me I need papers proving it. Caring more about how I dress than how I feel. Telling me that it's good that my chosen name is neutral-sounding, that it's good my body is not extremely feminine, that it's good I haven't come out at work (yet). Telling me that maybe I should stop being (trying to be) myself and wait until other doctors and therapists decide I can. I'm fed up of all of that. Sometimes it makes me fight even more. Sometimes it makes me want to end it all and stop my life right here. Sometimes it just makes me want to cry. I wish I could see any hope on the horizon. I wish I could hear another answer than “some day, eventually, it's gonna be better”. I wish I could feel alive today, at this moment. The flag was finally unfurled only when policemen had arrived to protect the demonstrators.

Since the 21st edition of the Olympiad in Mathematical Linguistics, the Milo Mazurkiewicz Prize is awarded at the final for the best solution to one of the tasks.