There is a voice in my head that says,
“You gotta stick up for yourself.
How can you not do anything?
Beat them up!
You gotta fight back.”

Everyone believes that this piece of fabric not only covers my head, but my brain too, affecting its ability to function intellectually.
I’m always told that my actions and ideas don’t befit my headscarf.
People always expect me to act like a nun, and to always defend the headscarf and the conduct of every covered female.

There are things I don’t know how to tell easily to anyone,
because people are judgemental.
Whenever anything related to girls’ bodies, needs, or desires is mentioned

Ever since childhood, people have treated me like I’m strange, provocative.
Ever since I was a child, I never felt like all the other boys.
gender identity, gender violence, harassment, body image, sexuality, social pressure, social stigma

I never fantasized about wearing a white gown and veil.
But I’m surrounded by people who interrogate me every year as to why I haven’t got married yet.

Her family thought she was a slut.
They thought she had sex with him.

Her sister was positive she did something bad with him.
Otherwise she wouldn’t be insisting on marrying him.
She must be trying to cover up what she did.

I wore the hijab even though I wasn’t really convinced I should.
I was trying to please God, since it’s an obligation for Muslim women.
It was also a way of meeting society’s standards of being modest.

No one would have told me:
“That’s a really effeminate way of sitting.”
“Why do you cross your legs when you sit?”

“How can you cross your legs like that?
Do you not have dick?”

Imagine that you’re a teenager, 13 years old, and you’re mocked nearly every day at school
because you weigh too much.
On top of that, imagine some of the stupid things that your classmates and teachers say,
social stigma, social pressure, masculinity, bullying, body image