Mikki started playing Scrabble in 2005 after discovering the game online. By 2010 she was coming first in
tournaments including the British National Championship, which provided her with £1,500 so that she could compete in Malaysia later that year. In 2012 she was the clear winner at the 4th European Open Championship held that year in Malta. She was ranked as the fourth best Scrabble player in the world.
Mikki was living in social housing in Carlisle, Cumbria (population 74,000), where she was receiving psychiatric treatment, and had spent time as an inpatient at Carlisle's Carleton Clinic. After she was discharged, she was supported by a psychiatric nurse.
She was subjected to transphobic abuse, and hoped to move to Newcastle, a city where people are more accepting. However she was warned that she would probably not be eligible for social housing there and she could not otherwise afford it.
She ended her life by stepping in front of a train.
- “Mikki does it again”. Being Drusilla, 9 12 2010. Online. Online.
- “Mikki Nicholson is 2012 European Open Champion”. Scrabble Malta, 2012. Online.
- “Transsexual Scrabble player crowned as British national champion”. The Guardian, 2 November 2010. Online.
- Stephanie Linning. “Transgender Scrabble champion killed herself after daily stigma and abuse”. Daily Mail, 22 April 2016. Online.
- Mikki Nicholson. Remembering Our Dead, 7 November 2014. Online.
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Scrabble is one of very few sports that does not separate the genders.
Really sad.
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