Mira Bellwether was born on March 31, 1982. Her mother, Tammy, was a hospice nurse; her father, Terry, was a respiratory therapist. In her youth she was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, a disability that would frame the rest of her life. Raised in the U.S. state of Iowa, she began playing dress-up with girls starting at the age of six, ending when her parents moved to a more rural area in her teens. Describing herself later as "the smallest, slightest boy [she] knew", Bellwether experimented with women's clothing and makeup—drag, in her words—while at the same time exploring her sexuality. She left Iowa as soon as she was able to. As of 2010, she described herself as "a trans dyke and student ... a femme, a queer, a dork, a cocksucker, and lots of other things".
