Hijab Butch Blues: A Memoir

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I am fourteen the year we read Surah Maryam in Quran class. We, as in the twenty-­odd students in my grade, in the girls’ section of the Islamic school that I attend in this rich Arab country that my family has moved to. It’s not a fancy international school, but my classmates and I are from all over the world—Bangladesh, Nigeria, Egypt, Germany—and our parents are always telling us to be grateful for our opportunities. Mine are always reminding me why we left the country I was born in a decade ago—a country where we lived next door to my grandmother and a few streets down from my cousins, where I remember being sur­rounded by love—to this country where we don’t know anyone and don’t know the language and my mother can’t drive. My parents are always listing reasons we’ve stayed: better jobs, more stability, a Muslim upbringing. Which includes an Islamic education in school. Of the people the author does come out to – their doctor, their friends and one friend’s parents – I could empathise with Lamya, and the “complicated calculation” they felt obliged to make each and every time they decide to come out to someone. I's nice to see how much of how she processes her life experiences is linked to the Quran, but then she veers off into blasphemy. This searingly intimate memoir in essays, spanning Lamya's childhood to their arrival in the United States for college through early-adult life in New York City, tells a universal story of courage, trust, and love, celebrating what it means to be a seeker and an architect of one's own life. As is the nature of a memoir, many topics are discussed and could be considered trigger warnings for many people.*

Hijab Butch Blues | SpringerLink Lamya H.: Hijab Butch Blues | SpringerLink

Time and again, Lamya challenges readers to reject longstanding, culturally-informed binary ways of thinking. She writes about the uniquely heart-breaking homophobia of Muslims, who are also a minority in the West. Through its 10 chapters, the memoir generally follows the arc of Lamya’s life, beginning when she was a young girl in an international Islamic school, discovering her attraction to women and sometimes feeling suicidal. She moved to New York City at 17 to attend university, feeling unsure of her sexuality and of America’s gay culture. Now in her mid-30s, she has found love, her people and a life she could not have imagined as a teenager. This memoir was well-written, engrossing, and introduced me to a community and life path that was, in some ways, new to me. Lamya H is an immigrant, a hijabi, and a non-binary lesbian. I am always fascinated when people who are not cis-het pledge allegiance to religious groups that tell them that they are worse than worthless, that they are a walking abomination, and I truly try to understand what leads people to do this. I want to be clear that there is no conflict between belief in god and being LGBTQ+, and that there are many denominations that embrace people who are not cis-het and do not preach that the bible considers them monsters. However, I have had LGBTQ+ friends and acquaintances over the years who are adherent Orthodox Jews, Eastern Orthodox and Evangelical Christians and I do not get that. (I discussed this with a group of colleagues last night and was angrily told that the Eastern Orthodox church is not anti-LGBTQ+ so I looked it up this morning. The Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States, declares, “Like adultery and fornication, homosexual acts are condemned by Scripture.”) And don't get me started on her comments about Maryam AS. Apparently, if a woman doesn't like a man, she is automatically a lesbian. It's not like women can value their own independence, or might be of the ace spectrum, or just aren't really looking for any romantic relationships. you can bullshit me as much as you'd like, but I REFUSE TO READ A BOOK THAT NOT ONLY HAPPENS TO BE BASED ON MASSIVE MISINTERPRETATIONS OF QURANIC VERSES, BUT ALSO CONFIRMS ALLAH'S (SWT) GENDER AS NON-BINARY (because it doesn't say whether he's a man or woman, so like, wHaT eLsE cOuLd He bE?? 🤡) WHEN IT HAS NOWHERE BEEN MENTIONED IN THE QURAN NOR HADITH AND IS BEST KEPT UNKNOWN TO MAN??!!! As a Muslim, I find that downright disgusting.There’s nuance to their story, which makes it clear that homophobia isn’t specific to Muslims but is still rampant in many Muslim spaces. They describe how homophobia from Muslims feels “like more of a betrayal” to them because of how close-knit the Muslim community is – particularly in times of adversity where community is needed the most.

Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H | Waterstones

I, on the other hand, never skip Quran class. I go to every single one without fail, not because of religious devoutness, but because that’s the kind of ninth grader I am. Too scared to cut class and a terrible liar. An overachiever, hell-­bent on getting good grades and ranking first in my class. A nerd, hungry to learn about anything and everything; an avid reader, fascinated by the storytelling aspect of Quran class and eager to know what happens next; a clown, unwilling to give up having an audience for the jokes and convoluted questions and inappropriate remarks that I offer in class, preferring the laughs and groans and eye rolls of my classmates to being with myself, to the thoughts that pulse through my solitude. 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. Speaking of Córdova, her memoir that is simultaneously a love story and a rumination on the activist movements and spaces she was part of epitomizes writing about the personal and political in conjunction with one another. In the sprawling narrative, Córdova touches on her butch identity as well as butch-femme dynamics in 1970s LA lesbian spaces, exploring lesbian and feminist politics of the time alongside a very personal narrative. I recommend pairing this with Brown Neon. From that moment on, Lamya makes sense of her struggles and triumphs by comparing her experiences with some of the most famous stories in the Quran. She juxtaposes her coming out with Musa liberating his people from the pharoah; asks if Allah, who is neither male nor female, might instead be nonbinary; and, drawing on the faith and hope Nuh needed to construct his ark, begins to build a life of her own—ultimately finding that the answer to her lifelong quest for community and belonging lies in owning her identity as a queer, devout Muslim immigrant. There are people who will call this book blasphemous, and who will be incredulous as to how a Queer Muslim woman can compare her struggles to those of the Prophets. But there will also be those readers whose minds will be opened, their perspectives broadened, and their binary ways of thinking dismantled as they engage in critical thinking beyond the parameters of whatever version of faith they may have been indoctrinated with.This time, Lamya’s friend Rashid is the one to call Lamya out, over their attitude of assuming white and light-skinned people are better than them. A revelation . . . with precision, compassion, and deeply observed storytelling, Lamya H navigates the fault lines of life and love in a queer Muslim body.” —Linda Villarosa, author of Under the Skin 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. I do realize that I’m somewhat playing into these binaries and strict categorizations by applying such a specific scope to this list, but I hope this will be seen as a useful starting place for memoirs on butch and/or masc identity and not restrictive. Definitely shout out any books you’d like to recommend in the comments, even if they don’t necessarily explicitly touch on butch identity! I’ve included some recent releases as well as some slightly more under-the-radar titles that skew academic or hybrid in form. I’d love to hear more suggestions! After moving to the United States for university, Lamya recalls “deciphering the hierarchies of this country” – from white supremacy to Arab and Muslim names alone rousing suspicion. Lamya writes that their “brown hijabi Muslim body is seen as scary, disempowered, both hypervisible and invisible at the same time”.

Hijab Butch Blues: Queer Muslim memoir confronting orthodoxy Hijab Butch Blues: Queer Muslim memoir confronting orthodoxy

Agripping and beautifulmemoir.I couldn’t put it down.” —Andrea Lawlor, author of Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl I know first-hand how easy it is to feel alone, and for a time, I wondered if I was the only one out there – the only lesbian on the planet who wore hijab and prayed five times a day.

Additionally, as mentioned Lamya is hijabi. The purpose of hijab (as with the shaving and covering of hair for Orthodox Jews) is to cover your beauty and femininity because men cannot be expected to control their carnal urges. Right there by adopting those practices women are advertising inherent inequality of the sexes, women as temptresses, men who have to set rules to contain them. More confusing, the hijab is a symbol of womanhood, and Lamya says they do not identify female. And the wearing of the hijab for them is not a nod to history, tradition or family - the other women in Lamya's family do not wear hijab, and they urge Lamya not to both because anti-Muslim prejudice is common in America and the hijab limits their options and because they think Lamya would look prettier and attract a husband if they lost the scarf. (Lamya is totally closeted with family.) Lamya H’s debut memoir Hijab Butch Blues doesn’t exactly begin here. When we first meet Lamya, they are fourteen years old and they “want to die.” Actually, they don’t want to die exactly. They want to disappear, they want to never have existed in the first place: “I just don’t want to do this thing called living anymore, and this feeling both creates and fills up an emptiness inside me. I want my parents never to have had me, I want my friends never to have known me, I want none of this life I never asked for. I want to never have lived at all.”