Written by an anonymous author
Am I a chosen one?
Growing up being Druze and Trans, I thought the notions of ‘anything is possible’ didn’t apply to me. I thought I was some weird standout – I was a chosen one for sadness and exclusion. I am still learning how to coexist with these two identities.
Druze are a tight-knit ethno-religious community of people who value conformity. When you dare to transgress the norm, you trigger their lifelong suppressed inability to do so. I’m not sure if I had the choice to transgress; I just did. Since I opened my eyes to this world, I knew that my assigned identity wasn’t mine.
I knew I was trans since I was six, and I have suppressed it since. I was forced to cut my hair, to hang out with boys and to play with boys’ toys. I could never conform. I would hide in my room and wrap my waist with cloth and my hair with my mom’s mandeel. My heart would drop each time I would unmask the cishet cover up off of my brain. I expressed it in subtle ways through my clothing, interests and behaviour. I also expressed it in much more direct ways, such as writing ‘I want to be a girl’ in a book of a local Sheikh. I hoped Allah would use his superpowers to fulfill my simple and innocent wish.
The Druze are a closed-off community that can have a sort of victim complex with intense fear of persecution. This can make the men obsessed with war and protecting El Ared (the Land) and El Sharaf (Honor), which means the women. The men are expected to be masculine enough to fulfill those patriarch-stuffed expectation. You can probably guess what happens when you can’t adhere to these norms. When you’re the complete opposite – a rose in a field of spikes. Not only did I not adhere to these wicked traumatized rules, I abolished them.
My mom, with a heart of gold and a healing chest, perpetuated these norms and forced them onto me. She told my cousin, who’s dominated by the patriarchy, to ‘make me a man’. I was to be replaced with a clone. One deprived of authenticity and instead stuffed with factory-made ideas where simple deviations are not welcome. I’m still trying to come to terms with this, but I would like to believe that even though everything I am collided with everything that she was – she still would love me when I unmask.