
I thank my parents, who made a six-year-old girl a warrior.
I am the 7th child of a Muslim family. Don’t get me wrong; I am someone who grew up in her corner. I am not sure if I could even be counted as their child. My father didn’t allow me to go outside when I

Wearing a headscarf has been something that I never want to do throughout my life.
Hello. I want to write this for a long time but don’t know how to begin. Today I feel like I can do it now. I started to wear the headscarf with my family’s pressure when I finished the second grade of high school. Actually,

When I return to my hometown, I never go out because I don’t want to cover my hair.
Since my childhood, I have been living with people who think if a woman doesn’t wear a headscarf, she is immoral. They defend that abuses and rapes are happening because of women wearing pants and shorts. They say a woman with a boyfriend goes wrong,

I will open a new page in my life even though my mother will write me off when I do this.
Hello, I want to bare my soul to you. I’m a 14 years old girl in the 10th grade. I started to wear a headscarf nearly four years ago. In the Quran course I went to after I had finished 4th grade, people always told

I can’t marry again to throw off the hijab.
Hello everyone. When I was in the 8th grade, I began to wear hijab, but the truth was, I never really intended to do it. I was looking awful with the hijab, and I was not feeling comfortable both physically and mentally. I completely felt

I was returning home from school as fast as I could just to take off my headscarf.
I don’t know where to begin, but I must tell you this; I won. In the 8th grade, I was forced to wear hijab; but things happened so quickly that I didn’t even understand what was going on back then. When my parents asked me

My parents always reminded me that I would wear hijab one day and start to work after graduating from middle school.
I’m a firstborn daughter whose youth has been controlled by her parents’ religious and close-minded ideas. I have three more little sisters. When I was younger, I dream of being a fairy tale writer or theater actress but on the contrary, my parents’ dreams were

Should I have to wait for the marriage to be free?
Hello. I started to cover my hair in the 8th grade because of my parents’ psychological violence and the fear of burning in hell. When I was studying in an Islamic Imam Hatip High School, I kind of enjoyed the idea of hijab; although I

The moment I get into university, I will release my hair and share my photo with you.
I’m telling my story in my room, my eyes filled with tears. This may be long; please hear what I have been through and don’t get bored. My mother’s side is religious; on the other hand, my father’s side is a family that constantly wears

We were traitors who let down those who fought for us on February 28th.
“On the blue summer evenings, I will go along the paths,And walk over the short grass, as I am pricked by the wheat:Daydreaming I will feel the coolness on my feet.I will let the wind bathe my bare head.” Arthur Rimbaud I had a lost

I wore a ferace not to be like women wearing a headscarf unwillingly.
I don’t know where to start. Let me tell you from the beginning. It all started when I was in the 8th grade. My mother talked about a religious channel and told me to watch it. So I started watching it, and then I started

I realized that fear was the primary emotion of all of us, and I thought you needed this letter.
Hello! I had been able to write a letter here before, and I have been waiting to write the second letter since the first was published. It was meant to be today. I have read many what different people wrote and understood that our primary

One day, my teacher asked the boys in the class, “When you are married, what do you prefer, a woman in hijab or not?”
After I took off my hijab, I was treated like I was irreligious. I studied high school in a district of the city that I live in. My family was in the center. Even though my school was an Anatolian High School, the administration was

If you ask, they say, “We did not pressure.”
I am following you every day, reading the posts. There are so many parallel lives, ruined dreams. Yes, I am one of them. I am 26 years old. Six years before, I veiled on my own will. Thinking they will force me to veil, I

I am interested in music, but my family is against it too.
I veiled in the 6th grade; now I am in the 9th grade. All of my cousins were going to religious vocational school, and by saying, “the only one who does not go is you,” they were trying to humiliate me. I decided to go

My mother prays that I don’t get into university.
Hello, I’m a 17-years-old young girl. But I’m still a child, according to my family. I think I worked very hard to make them accept that I have grown up. Like many of those who write to this website, my family is a religious one

I can define myself as an atheist bisexual.
Hello, I am 17. There were a lot of problems that have been on my mind for a long time. Now, I can define myself as an atheist bisexual. My family is Muslim, and they put their noses into what I wear. Maybe I wasn’t

I wanted to become a vegetarian. Why did Qurban have to be a compulsory religious duty?
In the 8th grade, I willingly started performing salat. I wanted to be a better Muslim, and fulfilling my religious duties made me happy. My looks were unfitting when I started high school. People didn’t believe that I was a Muslim. This bothered me a

This was the environment I was raised in: a cruel dad and a mother who didn’t say anything.
I am tired, I am drained, but giving up is not a thing for me. I can’t decide what I should start with; my dad walking over my mother just because of a meal, pulling her hair hard, grabbing her arm, and trying to throw

I felt isolated.
Hello everyone. My story is neither a success nor failure story; it is in purgatory. I am a 23-year-old college student. After graduating from the 8th grade, I made my own decision to wear a hijab. I always went to summer Quran courses when I

I realized that the world doesn’t have only an Islamic basis.
Hello everyone. I read most of your stories, and mostly I saw myself in these stories. My story is just like yours. Let’s talk about it, and I will talk about my story about taking off my headscarf, which has been a big problem that

My hair finally met the wind.
I did it, guys. My hair finally met the wind. I did it, yes. I am the 11 years old little girl who covered her hair with a headscarf with a blue hair clip, without knowing what it means. When I first wrote here, I

When I’m in my hometown, I walk in the streets as if I’m a criminal because I’m afraid that a friend from college will see me.
Hello. As it was the case for most of you, “family” used to mean to me people whose every opinion I had to accept and who I was sure were right. I was 13 when I got in the hijab. Then, I was going to

I am 14, and I regret everything.
It is probably a little too long, I am sorry, but I would be happy if it gets shared either way. My father is religious and oppressive. Every time we argue, he threatens me with taking away my phone or making me drop out of

On every visit to my relatives, they only ask me, “Are you going to study Theology?”
I am Nazlı. I am 18. My journey of Imam-Hatip, a religious school, started because of my father’s stubbornness and my headscarf journey started with enthusiasm at the age of 11. Already at the age of 5, my math teacher emphasized the necessity of a

They said, “You’ll wear a headscarf before someone hears you don’t.”
I have been following this site for a while, which has been the most encouraging thing for me. I hope I can encourage people who need it. My story has begun in the 7th grade. I was studying in an Imam Hatip secondary school. My

They said that someone put a spell on me.
My family is entirely religious. They have been forcing me to worship since I was seven, and I have been pretending as I do. When I was 10, even my period didn’t start, they prohibited me from wearing t-shirts and pants. They wanted me to

I haven’t intentionally worn the hijab for nine years, even for a moment.
Nine years… I don’t know where to start. Let me put it this way. I began to wear the hijab when I was eight years old because my older sister and my mother were with the hijab, then I regretted it. When I brought up

I was going downstairs for the first time without the hijab and I was happier than ever.
Hello. Earlier, I sent another letter here before, and when I sent that letter, I thought that there is no way out; I was torturing myself with my thoughts. But I understood that it is not hard to achieve that if I believe in myself,