Happiness is believed to come from inside, but for 28-year-old Alia Ismail, who has always felt uneasy in her body, that was not the case.
Ismail, from Detroit, Michigan, destroyed any female aesthetic from a young age and began dressing in masculine clothing when she became even a teenager. She admitted to Newsweek that she “wasn’t appreciated” in social situations and that she eventually began to think “there might be something weird” with her.
Ismail distanced herself from these emotions so she was unable to cope with them in response to remarks about how inappropriate she was and her discomfort with her body.
While I was a teenager, “Individuals might mistake me for a male or tell me that I shouldn’t put on boys’ clothes,” Ismail remarked. “My uncle advised me to trim my legs since I was about 11 years old, and the females said I had bushy arms.