A woman walks along the sand dunes as the sun sets over rocks in the White Desert north of the Farafra Oasis, southwest of Cairo, Egypt, May 2015.
Abdallah Dalsh / REUTERS
Yara would wake up every day to face the same agonizing question of what to wear. Unlike for many other women, however, this was not a question of picking between a dress, a skirt, or pants. For her, it was about dressing to avoid stares. Yara is a transgender woman in Egypt, and after years of hormonal treatment, she has been forced to live a double life, picking clothing to mask her transitioning body. “I wanted to avoid another beating,” Yara said, explaining how in 2009 a dozen men had surrounded and beat her based on her appearance. Two years later,
Source URL: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/egypt/suffering-egypts-transgender-community