[1] She grew up in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in a military family, as her father was in the United States Army.

[3] As a child she relied on her family as caregivers, but when she began to identify as queer, she feared her parents' judgment and planned to move out, a choice made more difficult by her need for help in daily activities such as eating, sleeping, and using the bathroom.

[13] Milbern advocated for fair medical care for people with disabilities, including both access and biases in the system, speaking against unnecessary surgery.

[1] In early March 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic spread to the Bay Area, Milbern and four friends constituting the Disability Justice Culture Club distributed homemade disease-prevention kits, including hand sanitizer, disinfectant, and respirators, to residents of Oakland homeless encampments.

She warned that the pandemic's demands on health services threatened her community's access to dialysis and other life-saving treatments needed by some to survive.

Her group also organized a mutual aid campaign, providing food and care support for disabled people in need.

[17] Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha's poem "When your friend dies like Jesus on her 33rd birthday"[1] commemorates Milbern's death and legacy.