Mya Taylor was born on March 28, 1991, in Houston, Texas. She was raised by her Christian grandparents, who at first did not know that she had come out as gay (pre-transition) in school. In 2009, she came out to them, which led to a lot of tension in the home. Taylor left and moved to California in May 2009 to live with another relative, but her gender identity led that relative to kick her out on the street.

Unable to secure legal employment at the age of 18, she served as a sex worker in Hollywood, much like Mya's character in Tangerine. She began going to therapy, and it was in her talks with her therapist that she decided that she was going to be true to herself. In January 2013, she came out as transgender. She has since reconnected with her mother, who coined her name, Mya. She lived in an apartment with her eventual Tangerine co-star Kitana Kiki Rodriguez. It was at the age of 23, after five years of sex work and after four arrests for prostitution, Mya was approached by Director Sean S. Baker and his co-screenwriter Chris Bergoch as she stood in the yard of Los Angeles's LGBT Center to star in their movie Tangerine.

Taylor is best known for her role as Alexandra in Sean S. Baker's 2015 film Tangerine. The first Academy Award campaigns for openly transgender actresses supported by a film Producer were launched for Taylor and Kitana Kiki Rodriguez for the film. Taylor won the Gotham Award for Breakthrough Actor for her performance in that film, making her the first openly transgender Actress to win a Gotham Award. She also won the San Francisco Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress and the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female for the film. She was the first openly transgender actor to win an Independent Spirit Award.

Taylor played Marsha P. Johnson in Reina Gosset and Sasha Wortzel's 2016 short film Happy Birthday, Marsha!. She is also in the 2016 short film Diane from the Moon.