The author argues that the primary legal logic upon which niqab bans in the West rest—to promote security and social interaction—is weak. To illustrate this illogic, she discusses three examples of niqab bans: the Canadian case R v NS, the niqab ban at Canadian citizenship ceremonies, and the French case SAS v France. The author argues that, in each of these instances, the legal terrain is distinguished by “fantasmatic scenes”—that is, emotional outbursts, exaggerated claims, and an openly sexualized discourse. She then turns to the true underpinning of these bans. The author argues that the face veil represents Muslim women’s refusal to be possessed by the Western gaze and hegemonic gendered arrangements. As such, veiled Muslim women are an “unbearable sight” that the state seeks to evict from civic life through the niqab ban. The author concludes by noting an increase in anti-Muslim racism in Western law that is both highly organized and globalized, and that troublingly casts veiled Muslim women as aggressors.