Aeverine Nieves

About Aeverine Nieves

 

Most people know Aeverine Nieves as one of Indiana's leading Transgendered Women, the transwoman whose groundbreaking accomplishments has helped take change Indiana laws to include transmen and transwomen, making Marion, Indiana and Grant County a more transgender friendly community, as well as the groundbreaking innovator as President and CEO of NO SIR GIFTS Venues, whose small business and launched INNewsCenter (in High Definition) and WXXC-FCA "INNCD 47" at Mississinewa High School as a Computer Technology  project assignment in November 1999. But gifts and media are not the career she envisioned for herself.

December 1, 2004 will go down in history as the day that changed how Indiana protects the LGBT community  from discrimination based on a person's sexual orientation and gender identity. The date wasn't chosen randomly. It was exactly the day  that Aeverine Nieves officially began the transition from male to female.  Prior to the transition, Aeverine was one of the top male Special Education Students in Indiana. Since the big switch, Aeverine has maintained her prominence in the community of Marion, Indiana.

Most people know Aeverine Nieves as the creator of fantasy television animated series Queen of the Willis, Amanda and Elisa, and Hoosier AnchorWoman: The Legend of Kendra Kendall, the transwoman whose groundbreaking fantasy television programs have helped pave the way of the stereotypes of the LGBT community . But it's not really career she envisioned for herself. Born a boy in LaGrange, Illinois and educated in the Mississinewa Community Schools from 1986 to 2002, Aeverine moved to Indiana in November 1983 with her mother, Margaret, and brother, Albert, and were living the American Dream. After graduating f4rom Mississienwa High School, Aeverine was studying to become a special education teacher. But after Aeverine's dismissal from Indiana Wesleyan University, everything changed.

Aeverine began her Special Education career at The Developmental Center (now Carey Services) in 1986. After leaving Carey Services, she then attended Mississinewa Consolidated Schools in August 1988 where she attended JC Knight Elementary School in Jonesboro, Indiana until May 1991 when she was expelled for fighting. she returned to the Mississinewa School District on January 4, 1993 as a student of Northview Elementary School in Gas City, Indiana until June 1994. Aeverine skipped the fifth grade and was promoted from 4th to 6th Grade at R. J. Baskett Middle School on June 3, 1994, and then attending Mississinewa High School in August 1997 and graduated on May 26, 2001.

Aeverine's experience taught them that all 92 counties in Indiana was in desperate need of leadership in the fight for transgender rights and equality in Indiana, and she decided to create something positive out of her personal tragedies that followed her dismissal from Indiana Wesleyan University and being cyberbullied on Enyclopedia Dramatica in August 2007. Aeverine's search for justice and her determination to not let her dismissal from IWU be in vain led her to fight back like few other Hoosiers have. Although she has never held political office and has visited political web sites on a regular basis, although there was speculation since 2007 that Aeverine could run for Mayor of Marion, Indiana and become not only Marion's youngest and first female mayor--but also Indiana's first transgendered mayor , Nieves has been the driving force behind major pieces of  legislation. This hard work led to Aeverine being honored by politicians: Marion Mayor Wayne Seybold (twice), former Indiana House District 31 Representative Tim Harris, and Indiana Senator Richard Lugar . 

Aeverine is the best-selling Mississinewa author of two books she wrote in school: Franky Zinn (1988), Prison Time (1992), One Life To Live (1998), Another World (1999), Senior Memory (2001) and another set to be released in 2011.

She also teamed up with long-time NO SIR GIFTS partners Carey Services and Grant Blackford Mental Health, to create a majority of services offered at NO SIR GIFTS, such as providing outdoor antenna services to get the big three Fort Wayne Television stations (WANE, WPTA, and WISE) after Bright House Networks in Marion dropped the stations beginning in October 2008, and donated MySpace and Facebook pages to Grant Blackford Mental Health in December 2009  as an additional resource for clients of Grant Blackford Mental Health. 

Aeverine Nieves lives in Marion, Indiana with her wife (domestic partner after Aeverine's transition is completed) Angela. Aeverine has five pets (children with four legs) from two previous relationships: Katie (b. 1988), Deanna (b. 1990), Coco (b. 1992), Sammi (b. 1993), and Timothy Rags (b. 1999). Aeverine and Angela have one pet together: Tabitha (b. 2003). Aeverine is also a pet grandparent of four: Alexis (b. 1999), Amanda Ava and Alexandra (b. 2004), and Allison (b. 2008).

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