Smith was born on March 7, 2004, in
Berkeley, California, to Gregory C. Smith and Keith E. Purcell, growing up in
Woodside, California, and graduating from
Sacred Heart Preparatory, a private Catholic school in
Atherton. She volunteered as a teaching assistant at Peninsula Bridge, where she was awarded the Bronze Presidential Volunteer Service Award in 2022. She was a member of the college's chess,
bridge,
LGBTQ+, and Japanese clubs. She was one of her team's top performers, placing fifth overall off the 3-meter board during her rookie debut. She stopped competing after her freshman year, citing difficulties as a transgender student athlete, but continued to train with the team from time to time thereafter. The site reported Smith's diving history while
revealing Smith's birth name. The backlash and online harassment Smith and Middlebury received from critics of transgender athletes led the college to remove Smith's biography from its athletics website. Following President
Donald Trump's January 2025 issuance of various executive orders restricting transgender rights, Smith spoke at a protest forum titled
Trans Healthcare is NOT a Debate! in February 2025, stating that it was "really hard going in a locker room where you're not welcome, and there's really not a clear space that I should be going to" and that "we're [transgender people] not trying to get into women's spaces to be perverts.. we're just being ourselves. We don't mean any harm to anyone". She spoke up about having to undergo quarterly
hormone checks to be able to compete. == Death ==