Our guest was born Hosam, a popular Arabic boy's name, to a strictly religious family in Yemen's port city of Hodeida. From a young age, she didn't feel comfortable in her clothes or her skin.
Behind closed doors, she would shave her bodily hair and put on makeup, imagining what it would be like to be a woman. Hosam's life turned upside down when she was detained because of the mere shape of her eyebrows and subjected to torture.
Today, Ritaj, a transgender woman, is living in France, having escaped the clutches of her strict relatives and local authorities.