Hijab Butch Blues: A Memoir

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Lamya, who is gender nonconforming, also writes of how the “rigidity of gender” follows them “like a punishment everywhere, across oceans and continents”. The author writes about feeling patronised by a friend who says Lamya would “make a beautiful trans man”. Margaret Mead Made Me Gay: Personal Essays, Public Ideas and My Butch Career: A Memoir by Esther Newton (2000, 2018) Reading about this couple’s journey in allyship to queer Muslims, not just Lamya, gives me hope that change is possible within religious communities, one friend at a time. Yay! You've decided to leave a comment. That's fantastic. Please keep in mind that comments are moderated by the guidelines laid out in our comment policy. Let's have a personal and meaningful conversation and thanks for stopping by! As is the nature of a memoir, many topics are discussed and could be considered trigger warnings for many people.*

Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H - BookPage Book review of Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H - BookPage

Even in multiracial and politically progressive circles, Lamya’s hypervisibility as a Muslim others them. At a queer gathering, the author recalls being singled out by one person who admits he was glad to have spoken to Lamya, and that otherwise he would have “studiously avoided the religious Muslim in the room”. This is really an unforgettable memoir that is full of heart, well written and teaches you so much about life. I think the author did a brilliant job of taking us into their world and I enjoyed every bit of it. Lamya H: I remember that moment blowing my mind because I didn’t even think you could pray like that. The way being in the mixed-gender line felt so right. A few times we tried to do that at the Islamic centre [in New York] as well, with varying degrees of success. I think another aspect of the community thing is also really just building communities of queer Muslims that are able to practise in ways that feel more expansive and queer and not gender-segregated, for example. Where critique and questioning is not only allowed but welcome, and is done in ways that feel like they expand possibilities. I think those are the things that have really saved me in the end – having access to community, and feeling a part of something that feels like it’s building towards justice. Even after I found other queer Muslims who are also practicing and embracing of their faith, I thought I was the only one to write under a pseudonym about my experiences, who politely declined every time someone urged me to come out to my family. A queer hijabi Muslim immigrant survives her coming-of-age by drawing strength and hope from stories in the Quran in this daring, provocative, and radically hopeful memoir.It feels the same when the author writes about being in an LGBTQIA+ centre for a poetry event, and two women ask how Lamya identifies in terms of sexuality. Thankfully, Lamya manages to avoid the question, but the couple then patronisingly thank them for being “such a good ally”. This coming Tuesday marks the pub day for Hijab Butch Blues, a new coming-of-age memoir by Lamaya H that centers the author’s queer hijabi Muslim immigrant experience. The title is a playful spin on Stone Butch Blues, the iconic novel by Leslie Feinberg that has become a beacon of butch and masc-of-center identity exploration in queer literature. While Lamya refers to the chapters of the book as essays, the chapters flow seamlessly together and are laden with thoughtful metaphors – sometimes, quite abstract.

Butch Memoirs To Check Out in Honor of “Hijab Butch Blues” Butch Memoirs To Check Out in Honor of “Hijab Butch Blues”

A masterful, must-read contribution to conversations on power, justice, healing, and devotion from a singular voice I now trust with my whole heart' Chapter by chapter, readers will feel a growing appreciation for Lamya’s intelligence, eloquence and courage. Along the way, we learn vivid details about her life and outlook—that, for example, she was a diligent, bright student with a disruptive sense of humor; that her parents immigrated to an Arab nation from a South Asian country for better opportunities and, as a result, that she and her brother experienced bias because of their brown skin; that she was immediately uncomfortable in New York’s gay bar scene and struggled to feel “authentically gay”; that she is ambivalent about America; that she loves her parents and feels OK not coming out to them.

The book is titled as an ode to Leslie Feinberg’s award-winning 1993 novel, Stone Butch Blues. Like its inspiration, Hijab Butch Blues delves into what it means to be a gender nonconforming activist, while navigating the biases and prejudices held in queer circles. Wonderful. I wish Hijab Butch Blues could be on every school curriculum, everywhere.” —Harriet Kline, author of This Shining Life From the Publisher Lamya is a practising Muslim and writes about reading the entire Quran during Ramadan, going to the local Islamic Centre for Eid prayer and reciting the Ayatul Kursi when scared. Your narrative structure makes me think about both geographical displacement and the displacement of desire – themes present in many religious texts, by way of spiritual and bodily transition.

Hijab Butch Blues: Book review - Lacuna Magazine

Then, something happens to Lamya. Like the prophets they’ve been learning about in the Quran class of the international school in the Muslim country that isn’t where they’re family is from, Lamya receives their own wahi, their own revelation. In the class, they hear the translated version of the Surah Maryam, the story of the prophet Maryam who was born a girl instead of a boy and promised to Allah before she was born. Maryam is sent by her family to live in a mosque all by herself as a child and then one day, she is chosen by Allah to give birth to the prophet Isa on her own. Lamya sees some of themself in the story of Maryam. At fourteen, they already know there is something different about them than the girls in their class. They know they weren’t born “right” either, and they find comfort in Maryam’s story. “I am fourteen the year I read Surah Maryam. The year I choose not to die. The year I choose to live.” The author performed all steps from study conception and design to writing and editing all drafts. Corresponding author It's very rich, coming from a woman who is herself part of the LGBT community and should know not to push people into these stereotypes. But let the double standards prevail. Even without a queer vocabulary or knowledge of acronyms, Lamya knows “instinctively” that those feelings are out of place, making them feel so alone that they want to die.It’s like the chapter for Maryam [Mary]. You positing her sapphism was great, because Maryam is so often desexualised. Lesbians and queer women, unless they’re commodified within a pornographic framework, are desexualised too. I love that you reintroduced sexuality to Mary, who is positioned on one side of the dichotomy a lot of the time. The contrast between those upbringings is night and day, of empowerment and disempowerment respectively. Maggie On You Need Help: Am I Erasing Bisexuality? " Thank you for this! I’ve been on this journey recently too, and having grace and compassion for yourself is really…" To help Lamya do this, they imagine what Asiyah’s life looks like after the Pharaoh dies. They imagine Asiyah free to build a life for herself “based on her principles — principles that [they’ve] heard in [their] mother’s stories about her: kindness for everyone, compassion, and justice.” They resolve to do the same even in this country that doesn’t want them because “there’s nowhere in the world that’s magically free of racism and Islamophobia, homophobia, and transphobia.” Hijab Butch Blues is a memoir from Hijabi, Queer, Nonbinary, Muslim author Lamya H. At age fourteen, Lamya realizes she has a crush on her female teacher. Born in South Asia, she moved to the Middle East at a young age and has spent years feeling out of place, like her own desires and dreams don't matter, and it's easier to hide in plain sight- to disappear. But one day in Quran class, they read a passage about Maryam that changes everything: when Maryam learned that she was pregnant, she insisted no man had touched her. Could Maryam, uninterested in men, be . . . like Lamya?

Hijab Butch Blues — Lamya H

full review to come but WOW i love love love this book, including when (honestly especially when) i felt extremely called out by the author as they described queer indispensability,,,,,,, To be invited into the richness of Lamya’s interior world . . . is no minor gift. Hijab Butch Blues is for anyone coming home to themselves in a world content to disorient us. Lamya H will show us the way.” —Cole Arthur Riley, bestselling author of This Here FleshThe stories of Lamya’s life are much different than that of Feinberg’s and Jess’s and mine, but reading Hijab Butch Blues still brought on the same feelings of recognition and serves as a reminder of the power we have within ourselves and within our communities to defeat complacency, indifference, and cruelty. As Lamya exemplifies for us over and over again in the stories she tells in the memoir, all we have to do is keep believing it’s possible.