On Oct. 9, the Iraqi author Sinan Antoon tweeted, “Killing those who are other/different has become a ritual/hobby, practiced by individuals for fun, after having been institutionalized by the state, political parties and militias for years.” His tweet referred to reports that an Iraqi teenager had been butchered on a Baghdad street by an assailant who thought he looked gay. But Mr. Antoon could have been referring to any of the young Iraqis who have tried to break free of the rigid social codes governing both genders only to suffer vicious reprisals.

The most famous of these victims has been Tara Fares. When she was killed in September, Ms. Fares, who had 2.8 million followers on Instagram, was the sixth most popular person on Iraqi social media. At 22, she was a self-created celebrity who mixed sexy fashion shoots with video diaries in which she fired back at her conservative critics. Ms. Fares was shot dead in Baghdad’s Camp Sarah neighborhood while riding in her Porsche.

When I read about Ms. Fares’s murder, recognition hit me like a punch. Though I am 13 years her senior, when I was her age, I also worked as a scantily clad internet model. I also reinvented myself on social media, posting endless photos of myself, trying to build a following that would somehow translate into something more. Back then, qualified only for menial jobs, I also saw my looks as a fast-closing door to freedom and used them as best I could. But I am in the United States, and she was in Iraq. The stakes for Ms. Fares were far higher. Her courage was of a different magnitude from mine.