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This is pretty much the theology I grew up with. Start at 2:18 for his demonstrations of all the various types of hijab that are sinful and wrong.

I feel so bad for this child.

From the youtube channel of Sheikh Zaid Alsalami from Sydney.

The Handmaid's Tale and What Extreme Religious Misogyny Looks Like

I know I haven’t posted in ages– life mental health survival etc. But I’ve been watching the Handmaid’s Tale, and it strikes me as a really great metaphorical vehicle for something infuriating difficult to express.

Specifically, the sheer levels of control that women are under such that compliance is survival and dissent unfathomable. There’s a parallel to women in insular Muslim majority communities here I am consistently unable to escape and it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

Imagine that was actually your reality. That this is what life in the US has become. And your outward compliance to everything anti-woman restricting your mobility and freedom was paramount for your safety and survival.

Imagine the rest of the world started to look upon your community with distress and disapproval, and savior narratives began to take hold– and in response, those women in your community with the most visibility and status– not the handmaids nor the marthas, but the commander’s wives and aunt lydias–responded with furious indignation at the very idea that they were oppressed or needed saving or were doing anything but what they were driven to by their own values and social preferences and will and self-determination.

Imagine then that this was deemed sufficient to silence dissent from outsiders concerned, that charges of intolerance and slander towards your community were mounted on such bases should anyone persist in objecting to blatant normalized misogyny in your life. And that a sickening subversion of the concept of a victim– one who is stripped of voice, power, opportunity, agency by forces no human could hope to match– persists, making it seem like acknowledging that women like you are oppressed is tantamount to a cultural attack, tantamount acknowledging that women like you are weak, slow, lacking resource and wherewithal and agency and will. As If strong, brilliant, brave, resilient, creative people can’t ever be broken by violence and power. No, rather pretend it is a prejudiced unwarranted lie that women in your community are possibly systemically oppressed in horrific ways when the terrible truth is instead that they face insurmountable odds that the most gifted and resilient and tenacious of persons would be driven to silence and conformity under out of sheer self-preservation.

Meanwhile, to use Offred’s words, the “pious little shits” of your community may freely rail against the mere suggestion that women where you are suffer inequity, and there is little outward capacity to differentiate the genuinely adherent “pious little shits” from you yourself, as outwardly your situation is the same and must appear so.

And so even attempts from outsiders to recognize and demand redress for your plight is subverted. And the progressives of the world stand by and enable your oppression and treat its very suggestion as vile xenophobic myth, in the name of anti-interventionism and the sanctity of self-determination.

Just imagine you, American women (assuming main audience here is function of proximity forgive me if this is not you), lived in the world of the handmaids tale and the progressives of the world treated your position as some mythos *in the name of honoring your agency* while you were bound in silence without recourse. And further to that, took the symbols under which you were bound, say the bonnet and red cloak, and defended free adherence to them with a fierce kind of devotion, and began to incorporate their representation in unilaterally positive ways into their feminist discourse without ever acknowledging their source and meaning and function as they are actually manifested to you and most handmaids who are not “pious little shits” happy in their succor.

Can you imagine how fucked up that would be, how unmatched your helplessness and anger about it? And how doubly silenced it would render you?

Yeah. That’s how we feel. Just try to process that without exploding.

hijabiexmuslim

You’re probably familiar with the term gender dysphoria, may be body dysmorphia too, well, here’s another one that’s quite similar in concept and that you’re probably new to: Hijab fucking Dysphoria. I have officialy reached the point where I can’t go out of the house. I haven’t seen the sun in months. For the past few months i’ve been trying to blame my self imposed isolation onto some mental illness that i might have, may be am social phobic, may be i have avoidant personality disorder, may be im just depressed because life is meaningless, well it is but that’s not it. the effort i’ve been putting into denying the real issue is unreal, but it requires only or a sneek peek into /r/exmuslim before a lump forms in my throat and i can hardly hold back my tears. i’ve become phobic of putting that rag on my head, i’ve become phobic of anyone that might see me wearing it. it’s unbearably painful. soon i’d have to go to college, every fucking day wearing it, i don’t think i’d have the strength for that.

I have recurring fantasies about holding a gun in my hand and indeliberately shooting my head in the blink of an eye, and i could feel my real hand moving from the concreteness of the fantasy. hijab makes me grieve my life, i feel too old and only 1 or 2 years away from being on my deathbead. There is so much i should be dealing with, there is studies, there is social life, there is meaningful connections with people i should be making, there are actually many issues i should be dealing with and there is also fun i should be having, there is a life i should be having now, but ehh those are mere dreams! WHY? why out of all the millions of girls that are not wearing it i’d be the one who’s forced to wear it and am not even muslim? why am i not my cousin who’s randomly lucky to not have parents like mine and our parents are relatives? why am i not one of the hundreds of classmates who are simply not wearing it? it’s simply, it’s too simple for them that they are not wearing it, it requires no thought let alone pain, it’s just the way it is for them. why me? i just wanna live a regular average life, i don’t care about islam nor atheism, i just wanna be allowed freedom and emotions other than crippling despair and grief.

I fear that I might never be able to take it off, even after gaining my financial independence. the experience itself of taking it off would be traumatizing, dealing with all the guilt and shame instilled in me since infancy, dealing with an abusive father who might haunt me in nightmares perhaps chasing me to chop my head off. having no support system i don’t think i’ll ever be emotionally strong enough to do it, and this is my biggest fear.

I wrote this post a little while ago on r/exmuslim, and honestly I haven’t made much progress since.

exhijabifashion

OMG omg omg

1) this is a tumblr that exists

2) I have been wondering for literally years whether anyone else experienced what they would term dysphoria due to hijab-related trauma. Mine is different than what is described, which I think is testament to the heartbreakingly diverse ways sanctioned modesty can fuck you up. My "hijab dysphoria" more than four years after I was able to shed the hijab continues to manifest as severe misapprehension about my own dimensions and a sense of disconnectedness to my own body and what it feels and how it looks and how to move it and a tendency to stay hidden by myself most of the time and thus unseen, which I have to fight because I work from home and could easily just not really see people for weeks. .

What if I told you that you can condemn bans on the hijab while still acknowledging the very real and urgent mechanisms of coercion underlying it? FANCY THAT.

In this piece I present a two-part thesis:

I, a woman who was coerced into hijab from prepubescent childhood, for 15 years, wholly and unequivocally condemn the French burkini ban as oppressive and borderline fascist.

I am also disturbed and disheartened by the form that rhetoric condemning the burkini ban is taking in liberal media. It is narrow-sighted, dangerous, and strikes me as especially dissonant...

21 year old muslim and have been wearing a hijab since the age of 13. I was forced to wear it by my parents and to this day I get into arguments for rolling my sleeves up in public. I'm at a point where I'm at uni, still financially dependent on my very religious parents and just feel like wearing my hijab just isn't for me. I just don't know how to take the leap...I guess I'm also scared because I have associated shame with showing my body and hijab with my identity...:/

Hi. I’m so sorry for what you’re going through. It’s more common than you know.

I wasn’t clear on whether you’re asking for advice (if not please do ignore the following as unsolicited), but I encourage you to try to withstand this for a couple more years until you are better enabled to be financially independent.

I know this is so much easier said than done, and I know it is a terribly costly thing to withstand, possibly in more ways than I am capable of enumerating. I can say I have deep empathy for your plight. I started wearing hijab at the age of 8, and it was only after I got my bachelor’s degree, my master’s degree, got a couple of years of teaching experience under my belt, and had a job with benefits lined up for me where I was going that I was able to break out of the community controlling and ensnaring me, and make it on my own.

I know it was terrible and incredibly damaging to wait. I also know that I was equipping myself, empowering myself to build something for myself during that wait. I have struggled monumentally with the repercussions of my decision (I don’t know how much acceptance you’d be able to find with your family and community, but for me there was none; I was immediately cut off and virtually excommunicated), and likewise with the isolation of having no social safety net and being alone and displaced (I fled Lebanon and can’t effectively return). I know however difficult this has been, it would have been many times more difficult if I hadn’t equipped myself properly before.

Finish your degree first, if you can. If you can tolerate it a bit more. I know it’s asking the world at this point because you seem to be close to a breaking point. I’m terribly sorry for that.

And after you have the means to be financially independent if you need to, then try to make your wishes re hijab known. I don’t know where you are located or what your family or community is like so I don’t know how possible having a conversation about this while remaining safe would be, but I do know that having a fallback that is YOURSELF, what you have accomplished and what you are equipped to make of yourself– that is the most valuable thing. And no matter what they try or how badly they take it, that is a thing that they will not be able to strip you of. Ever.

Regarding identity and bodily shame... that is a hard one, truly, and something a lot of people who decide modesty doctrine isn't for them go through. I think it's a very personal struggle, the one of figuring out your identity and contending with associated feelings of shame regarding having a visible body. It is something that only you can figure out once you have the time and space to explore what you really like and want for your body and yourself. It will likely be confusing and difficult at times, but I hope ultimately healing and positive. Talking to other ex-hijabis about it can really help.

Good luck. With everything <3

A thing that keeps confusing me: pointing to prominent examples of women vocally and visibly defending their adherence to hijab someplace AS EVIDENCE that hijab is not coerced in that community. Esp when talking about Muslim communities in the West (eg to claim the problem doesn't extend to Muslims in the west). I don't know what people mean or understand by "coercion" but positive willing adherence to modesty doctrine in the presence of social sanction and encouragement about it does not negate the presence of constraint. Especially if it is adherence within a fold that has no truck with outsiders. Sanctioned modesty is very very much a pressing and relevant issue in Muslim communities in the West. Women suffering from this are largely invisible, closeted, and unheard, and unless you have access to safe ex-Muslim or reformist Muslim spaces, you are not liable to see or understand how deep this problem runs. Because while those who choose to conform are visible, those who are not free to dissent are not. Pointing to visible examples of what is presented as positive, willing adherence to the hijab does not and cannot speak to what happens in the case of dissent. Conforming to an extant social norm and feeling free and empowered to do so is not only entirely possible in the presence of systemic constraint, but encouraged and enabled by it. Looking at the woman who insists she wasn't made to conform tells you nothing about the woman who didn't want to conform, and hasn't anything resembling the visibility to say so.

Today’s ex-hijabi story: 18yo Turkish woman in Europe

First of all I wanna thank you for starting this blog! When I first came across this page, I started crying like hell. As I was reading all the stories, I could recognize myself in literally all of them. Finally someone understood me. So here’s my story: I’m an 18-year old Turkish girl living in Europe. I started wearing a hijab when I was 11. It was “free will”, but as a kid I was made to feel that a woman who doesn’t cover up is a shame. Not to mention that I went to a muslim elementary school, every girl wore a hijab so I wanted to wear one as well! At the time it didn’t matter I guess.

I got a really high score for high school so I enrolled for a really prestigious, upper-class white high school. I could hear my father warning my mother that this school would take my religion away from me. I guess it kind of did. Around the time I was 13/14 I was already thinking about how freely I would raise my daughter. Now that I look back at that, it seems really wrong and fucked up for a child to think that. I firmly believe that hijabis are expected to grow up way sooner. I already felt like the “fun” part of my life was over. And the thing is it didn’t even cross my mind that taking it off would be an option.

When I was 15 it started to make me feel uncomfortable. After hesitating for a long time, I decided to tell my mom about how the hijab made me feel. She then explained to me why we have to wear it and thought it was just a teenager thing that would pass by. It didn’t. Simultaneously, I started to feel really envious and hateful towards my rich white classmates. Always asking me these annoying questions about my religion, and the classic sometimes being made out for terrorist. I wanted to go to parties, get drunk and kiss boys as well! So I started to really distance myself from everyone. I basically had no friends, didn’t want any contact, so my mom sent me to a psychologist. When I told her about my problems, I got diagnosed with depression and she obviously encouraged to talk to my parents about my “cultural identity crisis”. Only if it was that easy… This was a big issue for me. For example, I went to rock concerts (with my parents’ permission by the way), wearing a hijab, which felt really strange.

The following years my mind became more and more occupied with my hijab. I started thinking about it for hours a day, I thought I was gonna lose my mind. Last spring, during my finals, I knew it had to be over. By this age you’re obviously less dependent on your parents than when you are 13. I just went to school without my hijab one day. Everyone there, including my teachers, thought it was okay to touch my hair and tell me how much better I looked. I felt gross and violated. My parents’ reactions were also more intense than I expected. There are women in my family who took it off as well and some who never wore it at all so I thought it wouldn’t be that bad. My mother said she would kill herself, she wouldn’t let me graduate high school but instead take me to turkey, leave me there at a Quraan school. My father told me to fuck off and never come back home and my brother threatened to kill me. So my only option was to put it back on the next day.

My mind was such a mess around that time. I’m surprised I actually got my diploma; at least I had that. But I knew I couldn’t live like this any longer. A few weeks ago I started college. I’ve been secretly taking off my hijab in the train. I thought it would be hard but it felt like a really natural thing to do actually. Putting it back on when I go home is a different story though. I noticed I’m much more confident and I actually talk to people. I’m still not happy though. I pretty much still don’t have any freedom. I still wear my hijab when I go somewhere with my parents. When I look in the mirrors like that, it doesn’t even feel like me, it’s like looking at a stranger. I know my parents will eventually find out about it all, and I don’t know what will happen that day. I’ve thought about running away from home, but I don’t have any money. And truth is, I love my parents. I still feel depressed and the thought of suicide sometimes crosses my mind. I believe that in Islam it’s forbidden to force someone to do something. But my parents don’t realize that they’re pushing me away from Islam by behaving the way they do. I still consider myself a Muslim, just not in the way that they want me to. But in the end I’m proud to have made this first step.

Hello there; I really like the blog, but I've got a question here. You see, I understand many women are forced into modesty doctrines and want to be freed from it, but there are women who accept the hijab and some feel that it empowers them. My question is, is that freedom: to dress the way you want, even if it is hijab. Now mind you: I think women who were forced and abused have a right to say their stories, but what does it mean to 'be free' in every woman's perspective?

Thanks for your support and your question! My response:

Look, the issue of a ‘free’ choice is one that is fraught by definition because virtually none of our choices are free of social and material influence.

That doesn’t negate the fact that it’s possible to interrogate the levels of constraint certain choices have depending on the context. And if the choice is between accepting or rejecting a certain social norm, the questions tend to be different.

Does your choice come with unjust social, legal, or material repercussions? Does choosing other than what you have chosen come with unjust social, legal, or material repercussions?

Granted, there can never be full erasure of the repercussions to bodily choices of any kind, because we are not an island. But choices are definitely not created equal in that regard: there are systemic constraints limiting non-adherence to hijab that in overwhelming part do not exist for adherence to it.

Essentially, the question is this: Can the choice to adhere to a given thing be considered a free choice if a similar choice to *reject* it is not also free?

In other words, is it a free choice if you are not free to choose *otherwise*?

See, the thing about women who proudly adhere to the hijab and defend their choice to wear it… many of them (definitely not all! depending on social context– I’m looking at you, France, you motherfuckers) are choosing to embrace something that is already accepted and celebrated, that gives them value and status and respect in their communities.

And in that sense, the freedom of their choice is not really threatened.

OTOH, when hijab is a social norm,when your livelihood, marriagiability, social mobility, respect, dignity, acceptance, access to social institutions and material resources, physical safety, etc etc might depend on your adherence to it, then the ‘proud and free choice’ of the woman next door to adhere to hijab is not exactly the same as your own choice to reject it.

A free choice is one where you can choose to wear hijab OR to not wear it without repercussion of a systemic nature. A free choice is one where your value as a human being is not contingent upon whether or not you choose hijab. A free choice, insofar as it is coherent to discuss one, is one where what you wear or do not wear is not considered a matter of morality to begin with.

As long as gendered norms regarding clothing enjoin or reject certain modes of dress as morally valuable to begin with, this does constitute systemic constraint on bodily autonomy.

I just want to say that I absolutely love your blog and your website, theexmuslim. I can't describe how pleasantly surprised I was to see how many ex-Muslim women there are out there with similar views to me.

<3 thank you!

To be clear, www.theexmuslim.com is the web-zine and collective effort of writers and affiliates of The Ex-Muslims of North America, which is a 501©(3) non-profit organization dedicated to community assistance and support for apostates from Islam in North America, with local chapters in 18 locations and counting. Check us out at www.exmna.org !

I found your blog really interesting and informative, I also think is important not to identify yourself in life with such trivialities. As a human everyone is constantly learning, and that is the key to "learn". I will like to ask you what would you recommend to people with uncertainties in their lives?

I have no blanket recommendations for people dealing with uncertainties in their lives. That is an incredibly vague and confusing question.

Your personal opinion that it is important to not identify ourselves with ‘such trivialities’ has been noted, but I must vehemently disagree.

Surely it is a ‘triviality’ to express explicit rejection of the most damning, stigmatizing, and controlling norms and doctrines of our lives, which have touched our bodies and consciousnesses in more ways we can account for or deconstruct over the years. Surely the traumas and inequities borne of the severe stigma of anything but happy adherence to hijab and/or Islam in our home countries and communities are matters of ‘triviality’.

Until women who reject Islamic modesty doctrines are no longer demonized, stigmatized, violenced, and threatened with disenfranchisement, the label ‘ex-hijabi’ has more power and importance than you know.

And until ‘kafir’ and ‘murtadd’ stop being bandied around like slurs from mosque pulpits, in Qur’an classes, in Islamic schools and social institutions and judicial forums, dehumanizing and stigmatizing the very concept of a non-believer or an apostate in Islam, the identity of ‘ex-Muslim’ is a crucial one to claim and hold.

Ex-hijabi = Ex-Muslim?

Submission reads: I respect the choice of dress for muslim women whether they are comfortable being hijabis or not and support the cause, however I believe that a muslim women can remain a muslim and be an ex-hijabi I dont agree to the point that an ex-hijabi has to be an ex-muslim. Choice of dressing does not lead to finishing of the belief or faith

My response: I don’t think there is anything I have said or insinuated on this site that claims leaving the hijab must entail leaving Islam behind. The submissions guidelines do not require one to have or lack a certain faith. Several of the stories posted are from Muslim women who incorporate their critique of modesty doctrine into their understanding of their Islam.

So no, an ex-hijabi definitely does not need to be an ex-Muslim. However, the claim that you can be an ex-hijabi and remain a Muslim is a very very subjective one. Plenty of women who choose to move away from Islamic modesty doctrines they have been socialized into do so for reasons that *do* entail an overall critique and rejection of all forms of Islam and their social norms. Hijab is not just a choice of dress, but a code of conduct based in a doctrine with determinate content and normative implications. Rejecting Islam for the same reasons one rejects such a doctrine is perfectly valid and people should not be pushed to reconcile their rejection of hijab with a belief system they cannot in good conscience adhere to simply because others are capable of having such a happy reconciliation.

The Bisexual, Booze-drinking, Pork-eating Hijabi :)

Admin here: This post was submitted anonymously and edited lightly only for spelling and punctuation. Our writer provides an interesting perspective on how the very *sanitary image* provided by the hijab itself gave her the freedom to act in defiance of its traditional norms and redefine her hijab and her Islam on her own terms:

First of all, I would really like to thank you for this blog. I honestly had no clue that many women around the world are facing the EXACT same issues I am facing. I am 23 years old, and I live in a small state in the Arabian Gulf. Hijab and I have been throw ups and downs, and here is my story: My parents are quite conservative, but they have been getting more conservative with time, and I can’t tell whether it is because they believe they are getting older, or because I’m getting older. There are multiple issues that I have faced in my life that I want to tell you all about: first one, my sexuality: I realized I was attracted to women when I was in fourth grade. I used to sneak pictures of women in lingerie to school to show them to my best friend, who was curious. I also watched porn, and was aroused by seeing women masturbate. I didn’t think much of it because it was normal, regardless to my religious upbringing and education; my attraction to women was natural and didn’t seem as blasphemous or wrong as I was taught in school. I embraced myself as fully bisexual when I was in 7th grade, and have been more or less in the closet since - but later became an advocate for LGBTQ rights whenever the topic was mentioned. Ironically, I never took my sexuality to be Haram, till I was asked in school: “How come you don’t see it to be inherently wrong for you as a Muslim to support LGBTQs? you are basically trying to justify their sins!” Epiphany moment was reached: My version of Islam is different and I don’t care what everybody else think.

The second issue was Hijab. I started wearing the hijab officially during my last two years of high school, and in my senior year of high school, I went on a few school trips to Europe, where I would take off the hijab some days and wear it on other days, and I didn’t think much of it - I maintained modest dress. My biggest concern at the time was that no pictures of me without hijab would get to my parents and luckily they didn’t. I got to collage and I drank alcohol for the first time in my first year. It was my friend’s birthday party, all girls, we were all wearing scandalous dresses, I tried alcohol for the first time and I liked it! I made out with different girls, pictures were taken and BAM! they were all over Facebook the next day! I started getting messages from my guy friends telling me how they didn’t know I was that “wild” etc etc. I managed to get the pictures off Facebook, but was teased at school by my friends for it.

In my Sophomore year, I decided to take off the hijab, BEHIND my parents back. So I would go to school wearing shorts, keep a pair of jeans and a hijab in my bag, and put them on when it is time to go home. That life was stressful. I had to hide from my parents while not wearing hijab, hide from my friends while wearing hijab, try to make sure I have a big enough of a time-window to switch clothes. It was hectic but I didn’t care. I didn’t understand why I was wearing Hijab when I didn’t feel like it! it didn’t mean anything to me. I was judged so much for it by my classmates, I was the center of gossip for the whole year and I think I pushed them even more by wearing micro-skirts to school and see-through shirts. I started feeling uncomfortable, I hated being under the microscope everywhere I went. I stopped drinking after 14 days of partying and clubbing in a trip to Germany I took with school that made me feel completely out of hand. 6 months later, I put on the Hijab. AGAIN.

The gossip started again, but this time I was stronger and I didn’t care much. People came up to me and told me things like: You know you can’t yo-yo between wearing it and taking it off! it is not a toy - you either wear it or you don’t. The dichotomy was disgusting. I was so mesmerized how my hijabis and non-hijabis around me all seem to have their lives sorted out. Like they never had any doubts about anything. I felt lonely at times, but I knew I was doing the right thing.

What they didn’t realize was that hijab gave me the freedom to think and act whatever way I want, I can be liberal and think and read and say what I want in the freedom of my wrapped head. For example, I can stay out relatively late, people would automatically judge me to be a “good woman”, no staring in the street, no judging. I feel free.

I am free and because of that, in my last trip to Europe alone - my parents trust me because I’m a good Hijabi girl - I went to a pub with my hijab on, ordered beer, and a cheese bacon burger.

I am a free Hijabi - I drink, I smoke, I date women and men, and I eat pork. My Islam is my relationship with God, and I don’t care what anyone else thinks.

Are you still taking submissions? Either way, keep doing what you're doing girl. Love this and love you.

Yes indeed I am! There are some lovely (and heartbreaking) stories I’m about to queue for the coming weeks! <3 Thank you so much for your kind words.

hey :) so I'm a Muslim and honestly I kinda can't judge these girls. why? because I read that in Islam you can't force someone to believe and if they do believe to practice. but from what I read most of these families to exactly that and that's wrong. I don't wear a hijab and my mum does but no one ever told me to wear one. i have never been forced not even to do my prayers. I really hope these girls can live their lives free and the way they want to.

Thank you! I’m glad you never felt coerced and I also hope only for freedom for the girls in question.

Unfortunately in the world today there are far too many sociopolitical, legal, and extrajudicial systemic forces making it hard for far too many women, girls, and AFAB folks to effectively choose whether they adhere to Islamic modesty doctrines or not.

Here’s to that changing.

I wore hijab i'm gonna admit i took it off after realising it wasn't the way i wanted to be but never once have my family members complaned about it or left negative comments . I wear what i want now and i did before . I still am a muslim and proud .

Hello,

I’m glad you’ve had positive experiences surrounding this. My one hope is for every person in this world to be able to put the hijab on or take it off without repercussion or judgment just as you have. Cheers!

Rest in Power, #QandeelBaloch Comic by Shahzaib Hussain Illustration by Rahema Alam, with text by Sarkhail Khan

Small excerpt below, follow link to read more!

Rest in Power, Qandeel Baloch, murdered by your own brother in the name of honor.

How much is enough before it’s taken seriously, the idea that modesty/purity culture is dangerous and deadly to women?

How much honor violence will yet be explained away and ignored and overlooked? How much of it is obscured already, when not committed against the person of a very public figure?

Make no mistake that I could have very easily shared Qandeel Baloch’s fate once, except you’d not have heard of what was done to me.

I may yet. If I can’t keep running from the men in my family forever.

I feel sick. Are you reeling sick from this too? Tell me anybody cares how brown women are treated by the men in their communities and families.

Tell me anybody cares because it rarely feels like it. Tell me anybody cares. Tell me anybody cares.

It’s not even this one thing. It’s everything. It’s the thousands of things. I thought I was dead inside before. that my heart broke fully already. It’s not even this one thing. It just builds and builds, tearing everything inside us down.

Let me tell you about honor. This specter. Do you understand what honor is, how it’s wielded and used, why?

Do you understand. I don’t. But does it matter? It still dictates everything.

Every day of our lives, our bodies punished for honor, policed for honor, shamed for honor, restricted violenced in the explicit name of honor,

honor on every mind, honor cited and used to excuse and permit atrocities at every turn, honor held untouchable and holy over the broken bodies of women, children, and queer folks.

The honor of every man in our families held between our thighs, granting them the right to avenge their whole tribe should we sully their honor with what we do with our bodies.

Honor reigns. Honor kills....

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