“Typically, belly dancing is a sexually charged entertainment for men. And that's why I really love doing it in drag. Because, if it's for men, it's not for straight men anymore,” she chuckles.

El-Attar identifies as queer. “I like people of all genders. Most of my partners have been women, but some are not,” she says. Born and raised in Alexandria, Egypt where homosexuality is a taboo, initially she repressed her true feelings. Later she embraced her identity and started writing blogs about being a queer person in Egypt. One of her writings published on a friend’s blog drew a lot of attention. “My friend ended up being imprisoned for two years because of that blog,” she says.

A lot of people called up her home to complain about the blog and that’s how, says El-Attar, her family found out she was queer. She along with her mother and siblings arrived in the UK seeking asylum in 2007. Their asylum claim was rejected and the family was deported back to Egypt. Sometime later, El-Attar was granted asylum because of her LGBTQ status.

The process, however, was fraught with humiliation. She had to describe how and with whom she engaged with sexually. Once she got asylum, she set her mind to go to school. Her trials, though, were far from over.

Though she got accepted to every university she applied to in the UK, she could not attend school for several years due to a law that made it difficult for asylum seekers to access higher education. While she waited to go to college, she started campaigning for asylum seekers to be treated at par with British students within the education system.

El-Attar went on to complete her bachelor’s masters’ degree in engineering from Cardiff University On October 6, this year, The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) named her as one of the finalists for the Institution of Engineering and Technology’s (IET) Young Woman Engineer of the Year Awards 2019. She believes the nomination is a validation of the dreams of every refugee girl anywhere in the world.

“I wasn't allowed to study engineering for a really long time because I escaped persecution. So I feel for me to be nominated for this award, is a message to every little refugee girl who's told that she can't be an engineer or a mathematician or a scientist just because she's getting escaping war, persecution or torture,” she adds.

Share this Story