The first time I told my mother that I filed a harassment report at the police station,
She screamed in shock and made a big scene.
“You’re bringing shame upon the family!”
“You’re disgracing your father even after his death!”
“How could you go to a police station?”

I was one of those girls who wore the hijab during Ramadan when I was young.
I wore it during middle school and high school,
Because they told us that if a man admires our hair when we’re fasting,
That nullifies both his fast and ours.
social pressure, social stigma

I was walking past an qahwa (local cafe).
I could see them trying to form a circle around me.
No one from the qahwa did anything to stop them.
I don’t know where that scream came from, but it made them leave.

A few years ago, I gave birth to my first child.
Ever since then, every time I try to fast, my blood pressure plummets to 80/50.
My mom, husband and sister would tell me to stop fasting.
This would generally occur about 3 hours before we were due to break our fasts.
social pressure, social stigma

He was always suspicious of me.
Whenever he went out, he’d wedge a single hair between the door and the doorframe.
When he’d get back home, he’d check the door to see if I’d gone out.
His suspicions were very hard to deal with.
When God was going to bless us with a baby, my husband gave me an ultimatum: “It’s either me or the baby.”
So, I went and got an abortion.
motherhood, social stigma, domestic violence, prison, physical violence

I was walking down a street with two friends of mine, and a man kept following us, saying,
“I want to fuck you” and do so and so to you. The kind of talk everyone’s familiar with.
One of my friends stopped walking and cussed him out.
gender violence, harassment, social stigma, the street

I’m 24 years old.
I’ve had low self-esteem ever since I was 13 because of my weight.
People always stare at me and make fun of me because I’m fat.
“Will you be the one breastfeeding the kids when you’re married?”
body image, social stigma, bullying

I have to sit a certain way, I can't move my hands when I speak.
I can't cry around people, and if someone hits me, I have to hit them back. These are just a few examples of things I should do if I want "to be a man."
I’m still going to be myself, no matter how much this costs me and no matter how many times people tell me that I'm "not a man."

I entered the women’s metro car, and as usual, found men there.
Usually I fight them, but that day I wasn’t feeling well, so I said nothing.

It was around 2:00 pm in the afternoon in Al-Haganah.
There, people get their water supply from a public water tap.
There were a lot of people waiting in line, among them was a Sudanese woman.
She was in her forties, wearing a traditional Sudanese dress.
She obviously had to wait in line with everyone else.
But she also had to wait until everyone else finished.
Just because she was Sudanese.