On a scorching summer night in 2012, I stepped off a plane in Cairo, knowing little Arabic, and even less about what it meant to live as a man in Egypt. I was 24 years old and had rarely left my home in California. I had also never unquestionably been seen as male.
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Jamison Crowell in Egypt
After a short ride, a taxi driver dropped me off at an apartment building about two blocks from Tahrir Square, where I met my new roommates: an eclectic group of students and journalists, including a young woman who would later recruit me as her bodyguard. It was the beginning of what I knew would be an adventure, though not the type I expected.
Growing up, I never felt that I truly fit in with my female friends. There was a disconnect between the person I saw in the mirror and person I imagined myself to be. I hid my depression well. It wasn’t until I was much older that I learned about transgender people, but my view of them was stereotypical. One of the only trans people I knew of was RuPaul (who is actually a drag queen) and I couldn’t relate.
In graduate school at the age of 24, I fell into a particularly difficult bout of depression, but I didn’t know why. All I knew is that I lost my long-term girlfriend and found little excuse to leave my bedroom, let alone attend my classes. I struggled with erratic diets and intense workout regimens, yet still suffered from intense anxiety. I later learned I was experiencing something called body dysphoria. The more I learned about it, the more certain I became that I was transgender.
Eventually, in March 2012, I went to a doctor who presented me with the option of beginning hormone replacement therapy. Two weeks later, I decided to begin a lifelong process of injecting myself with synthetic testosterone.
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An hour before I took my first shot of testosterone, I called my dad and broke down sobbing, explaining my decision to start hormone therapy. He said little, and 15 minutes later we hung up. Before I could even re-enter the house he called back and said: “You mean I had a son and I never got to watch him play football?” His acceptance was comforting.
That spring, as I prepared to travel to improve my Arabic, I wasn’t only figuring out where I wanted to study. I was also deciding whether or not to travel as male or female.
I chose male. Yes, it made life easier in a gender-segregated country, but more importantly, I wanted to be true to myself. Little did I realize that hiding my bound breasts, hormones and other feminine physical attributes would be a challenge in and of itself.
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I didn’t consciously choose to become a bodyguard. It just happened.
Sexual harassment is normal in Egypt. My female roommates told me countless stories of men groping them in large crowds, caressing their legs on buses or masturbating in front of them on the metro. Then there’s the endless catcalling, the stalking and explicit sexual advances that never seemed to unsettle the locals: “You want sex? Can I fuck your pussy?” one of my friends recounted in disgust. For foreigners, it was especially hostile. The largest source of sexual information for men was pornography, and it had told them that Western women were loose, immoral and downright slutty—regardless of how they dressed.
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An anti-Muslim Brotherhood protest in Tahrir Square (Amanda Mustard)
Though I only stood 5-feet-7 and lacked any facial hair, my stocky 185-pound frame pegged me as “the bodybuilder friend” among the few Egyptians I knew. Before long, the girls I lived with started asking me to join them when they went to the market or a cafe. Having a man nearby made their lives easier.
At first, the idea of going with them bothered me. It was difficult to remember that people no longer saw me as a woman. But after a while I was flattered. They could sense I empathized, maybe in a way that other guys didn’t. From personal experience, I knew that no matter how cautious you were, there’s something deeply terrifying about living in a male-dominated society where your body is constantly fetishized—whether in the U.S. or Egypt. Helping my roommates empowered me, making me forget about my own fears about my body. (Though surgery was in my near future, there was no time for such arrangements prior to traveling.)
So when Amanda Mustard, an ambitious photojournalist who lived next door, asked me to come along on her weekly voyages into the crowds in Tahrir Square, I didn’t think twice. A Pennsylvanian native, Amanda was light skinned, petite and freckled. Though her stature allowed her to weave easily through the throngs of chanting Egyptian men, her large camera and foreign features made it difficult for her to go unnoticed. For the next six months, I joined her as she captured the political turmoil in the square, from the protesters hurling Molotov cocktails to thousands marching jubilantly under a sky illuminated by fireworks.
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As the media continued to report of violence in the square, my inbox flooded with emails from worried university administrators offering me an “emergency evacuation.” Ironically, the concern would always come when the situation was most stable, and no one ever addressed my daily paranoia of being “discovered.”
Though I rented a room in a three-bedroom apartment, we also shared the common spaces with the apartment next door. People swapped rooms, guests stayed for extended periods of time and visitors often came by unannounced. At any given moment there could be eight to 12 people sleeping over. These cramped quarters led to close friendships, but it also brought everyone a little bit closer to my secret.
The heat was unrelenting my first summer in Cairo. The wind brought sand and the lingering aroma we half-fondly referred to as “The Stench of Cairo.” Nudity was our only recourse.
While my European roommates trotted around half-naked, I sat miserable, sweaty and clothed. I arrived just a few months into my testosterone shots and my body remained relatively hairless, curvy, and frustratingly female. To conceal the most obvious indicator of my dual X chromosomes, I wore a poorly fitted binder, which compressed my chest and made breathing difficult.
Occasionally, my skin would crave fresh air and I’d seek the comforts of my bedroom. Alone, I was free to bare all and crank the AC to let the cold air whish over my skin and the deep indentations that my binder left behind.
Everything was fine, until we all became close enough that knocking went out of style. “Jaaaaaayymeeeeeee, come out to play!” my Italian flatmate yelled one night from outside my bedroom door. “You are no fun in your room.” I had taken to locking the door after numerous intrusions during which I managed to cover myself just seconds before they entered. She peeked through a broken window panel and exposed a devilish smile. Fortunately, I exposed nothing in return—at least not yet.
One night around 4 a.m., I opened my bedroom door into the dining area to grab a book off the table and was surprised to find my roommate, Mika, standing in the dark room. The back light of my room exposed my torso to her view. I was shirtless. Startled, I quickly shut the door and hoped she’d never bring it up.
A few weeks later, as we drank cheap Egyptian whisky and listened to Die Antwoord, I candidly told Mika I was trans. “Yeah, I know,” she replied. “It’s cool. I’m from Cali, remember?” We left it at that, but Amanda and the rest of my flatmates remained in the dark. And for the time being at least, I wanted to keep it that way.
*
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Clashes broke out in Cairo outside of U.S. Embassy after an amateur film, mocking the Prophet Muhammad, was released in the States. (Amanda Mustard)
I was happy to make Amanda’s job easier. But as I realized that everyone saw me as a man, I had trouble coming to terms with my newly acquired privilege. I didn’t want to take it for granted.
The only problem: Women now saw me as a potential threat. Save for family members, it’s unusual for men and women to interact in Cairo. But I quickly learned that even a harmless gesture—an unsolicited greeting or handshake—can be seen as something ominous. Once I shared a spacious elevator with a single woman, who promptly moved back against the far corner and began whispering to herself. Though I couldn’t make out her words, it seemed like she was praying.
Another time, at a party, I made small talk with an Egyptian woman. The crowd was liberal, there was alcohol present, the women weren’t covered and some of the guests were openly gay. Yet after just a few words, she blurted out “Laazim amshi” (“I must go”), left her drink and hurried off. She seemed frightened, not annoyed.
I certainly didn’t feel intimidating, but people had pegged me otherwise. And as Amanda and I continued roaming through Tahrir, I started embracing how people saw me.
On Sept. 11, 2012, this became useful as a few hundred people gathered at the U.S. Embassy to protest “Innocence of Muslims,” an anti-Islamic film made by an American Coptic Christian. Before Amanda and I left, we agreed to tell people we were Belgian. Because of my dark features, people often thought I was Egyptian, but my accent was foreign; we didn’t want to take any chances.
The next day, a makeshift wall had sprouted up near the embassy to keep the crowds at bay. Egypt’s Security Forces stood on one side, while a few dozen protesters hurled chunks of broken debris from the other.
We stayed about 20 feet from the wall, grasping to the side of a nearby building for cover, as tear gas canisters and concrete flew overhead. I kept an eye out for inanimate objects, but also for aggressive men as Amanda worked. Some of the protesters were genuinely outraged by the film, but most were just young and bored. Even with their faces covered with kaffiyehs, I saw the outlines of their mischievous grins.
Months later, in November, the violence escalated. And now nobody was grinning. What started as a memorial celebration for 50 martyrs who had died in a tragic street clash one year earlier, quickly turned bloody.
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An anti-Muslim Brotherhood protest in Tahrir Square. (Amanda Mustard)
From our window we could see the violence intensify. The building across the street broke out in flames. Leaving our apartment, it was nearly impossible to distinguish the time of day, as a mixture of ash and smoke loomed overhead like a thick, impenetrable fog. Lines of cars disappeared. Merchants boarded up their shops and tree branches and chunks of broken concrete obscured the roads.
This time, I was helping not only Amanda, but also my friend Ariana Drehsler, another American photojournalist. The protests had drawn thousands, and we felt there was safety in numbers (at least as much safety as possible).
As they zigzagged through the crowds on Mohammed Mahmoud street towards Tahrir Square, searching for the perfect shot, I trailed them both, keeping them in sight and creating a physical barrier between their bodies and any wandering hands.
Suddenly, the crowd roared. Everyone became overwhelmed by panic. We saw white smoke rise and inch closer. Someone had launched a tear gas canister into the middle of the crowd and everybody was trying to escape. Now we weren’t moving with the mob; the mob was moving us.
Hands flailed, as people pushed us off the main street and toward the adjacent alley where the journalist Lara Logan had been sexually assaulted by a group of men. Realizing the danger, Amanda yelled, “No, not that way!”
We veered to the left toward a nearby passageway and I grabbed them both and pushed them against a wall to prevent us from being trampled. As a few men tried to convince us to follow them, I become highly aware of my own vulnerability. Amanda was wearing my most secure chest binder, which she had found in the wash. She had mistaken it for a compression shirt and I had just nodded and smiled. Now my stomach was at my ankles as I thought about what might happen if somehow the situation turned sour and my own female body was exposed.
Eventually we decided to follow the line of men in the opposite direction. As we squeezed between the wall and the dilapidated remains of a car, I looked down and realized I was walking through a pool of human feces. The stench was horrible, but we didn’t have a choice. We kept moving until we made our way back to our apartment.
*
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I told Amanda a few months later. It’s not that I didn’t want her to know, I just had no reason to bring it up, nor did I want her to tell her boyfriend. Though everyone says they wouldn’t have treated me differently had they known, I know that’s simply not true. Women see you as nonthreatening, men don’t accept you as “one of the guys.” I don’t blame them, it’s just a reality of how most of us are raised.
It was around 4 a.m. and Amanda and I were the only ones awake. Everyone else had retreated after a few beers. She told me about her awkward childhood and her career change that brought her to Egypt. As I talked about my past, I realized how hard it was to switch gender pronouns. I suddenly knew that in order to have a meaningful friendship with anyone, I had to tell them the truth.
When I told her, she was shocked, then excited. And then she wanted to know everything. I answered every question and then a few hours later, we retreated to our separate rooms, me with a sense of relief and her with my secret.
In September, on my 25th birthday, a group of us headed down to the Nile and boarded a felucca packed with cheap beer. It didn’t take long before most of were buzzed and desperately needed to piss. A couple guys proceeded to pee over the side of the boat, urging me join. Amanda cheered me on, too. “Go ahead,” she said. “Nobody here cares.”
She had forgotten the detail of my life that seemed to dictate my every thought. And it was liberating.
When I left Cairo, the beginning of the protests that led to President Mohamed Morsi’s removal had just begun. I wasn’t eager to leave, but I had a thesis to write and a degree to finish.
While not everyone values the importance of a rite of passage, my time in Egypt proved to be just that. I didn’t learn how to be a man; I learned about the type of man I wanted to be.
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