A niqab is a piece of black cloth that can have one to four layers, it's worn over the head and covers the face apart from the eyes although they can be covered by another layer. It is mostly worn by Islamic women for a variety of reasons; some out of cultural obligation and some for feminism. The idea behind it is to keep a woman modest so that the woman's hair and face are preserved for close relations and husbands. It's usually combined with some other garments like an overhead abaya, abaya, chaddor or hijab and is often mistakenly called a burka in western countries. The overall impression to people outside Islam is that women are forced to wear it out of religious obligation however the Niqab's origins came from Arabia and Persia long before Islam. You can find out more here if you like.

History lesson out of the way, here's my story:

I like to cross dress in my house and my house mates are awesome in accepting it. I tend to wear unusual things even from a female fashion perspective those things being sarees. I don't bother trying to make myself look effeminate I just enjoy wearing that type of clothing. I don't want to look like a woman when I get dressed up I just want people to treat me normally. I tend to keep it indoors and change whenever I need to go outside into man clothes, I do think that there would be a time when I could just stride out without a care. But for now I don't want to take the risk as I still have hang ups about negative attention.

I decided to buy a niqab and some other modest clothes after seeing an Islamic clothing shop in my town. Being an art student you have a cure-all excuse of "it's for an art project" and then bullshitting about some vague brief. Now that I had them it was a while before I actually went outside. The idea buying it was based on not wanting to be seen but being able to go out cross-dressing. Even though my house mates knew about my cross-dressing I wasn't 100% sure how they would take my new look. Eventually though I told them about it and one of my house mates was incredibly enthusiastic about it saying that it would be perfect.

So I eventually decided to take the leap and actually go outside for the first time ever, it was raining and at about 9am in the morning which is a good time for quiet streets. I wanted to avoid school kids just in case something gave me away and anyone Muslim because I was terrified of being exposed. I spent a lot of time pacing as to if I should do it and eventually just opened the door and strode out. I got about half way down the street when I wanted to turn back but I thought it would look weird if I did so I decided just to check the times at the bus stop. On my way back a woman and kid were walking in the other direction and stared at me. Then I got back into the house and that was that. The first time is always the most rewarding but it lead to an addiction where I wanted to test how well I passed.

Fast forwards to today and I've been spending the last couple of weeks in niqab and have had the same reaction from a variety of people. So far I've been out during a football match finishing, when there have been many teenagers around and even on windy days where the fabric clings to me. All the time I was thinking the stares were coming from people confused about my gender until one day that paranoia changed. I was walking back on a windy day in sunlight hurrying my walk when I see an Islamic woman walking towards me who greets me and then walks on by. After that the veil of paranoia was lifted and I felt absolutely free. After walking past many different people no one has been outwardly aggressive. Even when I walked past the Police nothing happened and I felt so stupid for thinking that it would be so easy to see through my disguise.

It's weird that now I see all of my effeminate clothes as nothing special now. The risk has sort of been taken out of it and the niqab has given me a massive confidence boost to dress the way I want to. Wearing it has given me a lot of respect for the women who do it full time, it definitely hammers home a personal meaning that the way you dress is no one else's business.

As a final thought; I did some research before wearing my Niqab and found out a lot about its cultural background. Did you know that there were stories of men wearing Niqab because they were considered too beautiful for men and women?