Nazek Alexander’s story begins in the Middle East, which does not have an excellent record on the rights of LGBTI+ persons. The pressure of the male-dominated society in which she lived and the cruelty of the strict Islamic rules of Saudi Arabia turned into a hefty burden that she had to carry at an early age.
“In the eyes of both my family and my close circle, I was a creature that should not exist, that was wrong and needed to be changed,” she says of her childhood and adolescence, which she had to spend alone.
Despite all these pressures, Nazek resisted and found ways to survive in her society. However, she emphesized that it was not easy: “Unfortunately, these pressures were not limited to humiliation or ostracisation. My brother, who thought I was a source of shame for our family, tried to kill me. His justification was my ‘feminine’ behavior. One day, he put a pillow on my head and waited until he was convinced I was dead.”
Her brother did not get what he wanted that night. Fainting because of the lack of oxygen saved her from death. That day, Nazek clung to life despite that terrible experience, set off for a better life and never looked back.
If they ask me what the saying “Geography shapes your destiny” describes, I would say Nazek without thinking. However, I would also put “resistance and hope” next to this expression that does not speak/evoke good things to those who hear it. Her story is complete with these two words.
Forced attendance to police academy and marriage
Her family forced Nazek to go to the police academy and marry after graduation. She spends years with her wife, whom she still speaks fondly of as a woman who suffered from the persecution of the Saudi society like her and other women in her country. This forced marriage, and the obligatory family she created enabled her to divert the hateful eyes of her family and her neighborhood, which she had felt since the day she was born. Nazek continued to live as a married individual but was truly unhappy.
As her unhappy family life continued, she met her first boyfriend. They started to have a secret relationship, which opened a brand new page in her story, out of sight. Although Nazek defined herself as a “crossdresser” in those days, she unwittingly adapted to being a trans woman. However, I do not think this relationship lasted like in Pedro Almodovar’s films. The Saudi social order, where violence against women is commonplace and supported by the state and religious institutions, did not leave her alone in this hidden world. After a while, her boyfriend starts inflicting psychological and physical violence against her. Since there is no other life she knew or anywhere she could go, she had no choice but to stay and endure. Until one day her mobile phone got stolen and her personal information fell into dangerous hands…
The so-called moral structure, in which criminals and cis-men are always protected, came upon her more and more violently. Photographs of her in “women’s clothes” on her mobile phone were used by thieves as a threat and blackmail tool. To this day, Nazek still doesn’t know how they managed to get past her phone’s password and accessed the content. “But I was sure of one thing: It was time to leave the country where I was born and raised, where my family and friends live,” she says.
The police academy Nazek was forced to attend, which she saw as a misfortune and torture, ironically led to saving her life. When she had not yet come out as a trans woman and was pretending to be a “cis-hetero man” to survive, she graduated from the academy and started working in the police force. In a twist of fate, this job would help her escape the country.
From Saudi Arabia to Turkey
Many of us who have the luxury of traveling abroad with a passport may find it challenging to understand Nazek’s journey to Turkey. As she says, traveling from Saudi Arabia to any other country is only possible with a permit issued by the security forces.
Nazek, who foresaw that the process following the theft of her phone and the leak of her private life to the police would not end well, managed to escape to Turkey with the support of a cis- heterosexual Turkish man working in Saudi Arabia. At the time, she considered him the only friend she made in Saudi Arabia. This lucky escape was also made possible with fake documents arranged by a police force member she knew.
Even though Nazek felt obligated to flee her home country, she feared what would happen to her relatives and wife, after she was gone. As they are unaware of her plan, they didn’t directly experience the pain of the escape process.
With the help of her Turkish friend, Nazek searched for solutions to start a new life first in Istanbul, then in Bodrum and then in Istanbul again. In the meantime, she realized that the intentions of the Turks who pretended to be helping her weren’t as innocent as they looked. She made visa applications to European countries, especially to the Netherlands, but all were rejected because she was not in her country of residence. Seeing that the savings she had taken with her to Turkey were rapidly melting away, Nazek started to search for countries where she could go visa free and live her identity freely. New Zealand, on the other side of the world, stood out as the most reasonable option among these countries.
A journey to the farthest place you can go
Nazek escaped from the so-called friends who exploited her financially in Turkey and set off for New Zealand. Although she didn’t know what she would encounter there, the distance of this country from Saudi Arabia, which would execute her if caught, was a convincing enough reason for her to be happy and hopeful. Moreover, this process was more straightforward than she imagined. When she arrived in the small country of the new world, she said she would be there for a while for language school and managed to enter the country. When she describes that moment, she says that her short conversation with the border police felt like a lifetime, and she starts to cry.
After the passport control, instead of going to the luggage hall to take her suitcase, Nazek went to the police station and told them her story, and she immediately applied for asylum. Unfortunately, her experiences from this moment on do not match the perception of New Zealand as a lovely, developed, civilized country. She was detained for days, couldn’t find a translator, and was subjected to ill-treatment. But at the end of this challenging process, authorities allowed her to stay in New Zealand.
She could not predict what would happen to her when she was released from detention, such as not receiving much support from official organizations and being left alone in a completely new country. This lonely period gradually became so dark that she attempted suicide. Fortunately, this attempt did not turn out as intended, and she defeated death for the second time. Moreover, in those days, the New Zealand police, upon a tip-off, managed to stop Nazek’s brother, who was on his way from Saudi Arabia to kill Nazek in Singapore, where he landed for a connecting flight. If they couldn’t prevent him from coming to New Zealand, he could have most likely finished his ill-fitted task, which he nearly missed on his first attempt.
After some tough days, Nazek started a new life. She realized she is no longer condemned to the gender assigned at birth and can have the identity she feels and belongs to. Firstly, she requested a new job, which led me to come across to her and listen to her story. When I followed Auckland Pride for Velvele, she approached me and asked if she could put rainbow makeup on my face. Of course, it was never possible for me to refuse this sweet request. That’s how I met her, and the conversation that started there brought us together and closer in the days following Pride. This closeness allowed her to share her bitter life story with me. In one of our long conversations, she said, “Write my story too. I want everyone to know that the journey to be yourself is challenging but ends happily.” In this article, I tried to share Nazek’s intercontinental struggle as much as possible.
Nazek, with her blonde hair and excellent make-up, tasteful clothes, radiant smile and warmth, came into my life instantly, and we laid the foundation of a friendship that hopefully will last for many years. This young woman, who has overcome countless difficulties, experiences of violence, fears and anxieties, today only misses and worries about her ex-wife and some family members from the past she left behind. Although it hurts her never to see them again, she continues to look to the future with hope and proudly continues her journey to be herself.
This article was originally published in Turkish on velvele.net on September 16, 2022; translated into English by the author.
