Fleeed to hide

By Naomi Elektra Bruhn

Deutsch (original) · Auto-translated to English

Don't want to hide anymore: Najib Faizi as drag queen Najiba at the Hamburg CSD on August 1st

Najib Faizi noticed early on that he was different from the children around him. He grew up in Kandahar, the third largest city in Afghanistan, and now lives in Hamburg. In an interview with Jungle World, he remembers that as a child he didn't want to be like his father, but rather like his mother. In the evening he secretly applied her lipstick and eyeliner; In the morning, before he had to go to school, he washed everything up again. "I always felt so comfortable when I had makeup on." One morning he forgot to wash his face and went to the local bakery with red lips and thick eyeliner - a scandal in the neighborhood. But she would have talked about him before that too. "My parents, the school, the neighbors, they all had problems with me because I was so feminine." When he came home from school that day, his father, a mullah respected in the area, was already waiting for him. A scar still reminds of his beating.

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