Farida Aly spent decades undergoing blood tests, brain scans and personality tests in Egypt before doctors finally issued the needed medical reports to allow her to undergo gender reassignment surgery.

She was born Muhammad Ramadan Ali and she had always felt she was a girl; however, she had no idea how to deal with her feelings. She received medical reports that said that she had brain deficiencies and mental issues.

Gender reassignment procedures are legal in Egypt; however, in the conservative Muslim country, it is often a long and highly stigmatized process. Gay and transgender people have reported cases of assault and torture.

Ali was abandoned by her family, she was left jobless, and she had to move to another town where only a few people know about her past. She tutors children in the neighborhood to earn a living, and one day, she hopes to have a child of her own.

Difficult words: gender reassignment surgery (an operation by which a person¢¥s physical appearance is changed to the gender that he or she feels to be), brain deficiency (a chemical imbalance in the brains that makes a person unable to learn or control emotions), stigmatized(when society regards something as disapproving or shameful).