Hijab Butch Blues: A Memoir

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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. This was a mystery and a revelation, and it helped her in later years as her family attempted to mold her in traditionally gendered ways. A rabbi whom my family adored, in fact we chose him to officiate at my son's bar mitzvah, came up with an interpretation of Abraham and Isaac (which is a very hard story to read and remain a fan of scripture) in which Abraham and Isaac knew all along that God was screwing with Abraham and both were just playing along.

Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H. | Goodreads

An image of Lamya does, however, appear on the US cover of her book, featuring the author dressed in a hoodie and hijab, photographed from the back, her profile ever so slightly visible. they also perfectly encompassed my teenage experience, from the passive suicidalness (not wanting to die in a way that gives people something to grieve, but just wanting to disappear) to the lack of vulnerability (not willing to accept help but inserting myself into everyone else’s lives to the point where they need me, for fear of people leaving me if i ask or want or need things).Miss gurl's even ranked the Prophets from favorite to least favorite; did your Quran classes not teach you about the very real verse in the book about respecting ALL Prophets? As for those to whom she has opened up, Lamya has reframed it as “inviting in” rather than “coming out”, and she believes that being vulnerable can help others become more understanding and accepting. A few times we tried to do that at the Islamic centre [in New York] as well, with varying degrees of success. 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 moved to New York City at 17 to attend university, feeling unsure of her sexuality and of America’s gay culture.

Hijab Butch Blues - Icon Books Hijab Butch Blues - Icon Books

All these other essays had been here all along, it felt like I couldn’t stop writing them, because for so long I had been thinking about both my life and the lives of these Prophets and complicated figures – so it felt like a lot of those essays just wrote themselves.Remembering Muhammad’s mission to build a “community of believers,” Lamya forged a circle of queer and nonbinary social justice activists, found life mentors among a group of LGBTQ+ Muslims, and unexpectedly fell in love with a White woman.

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

Professional life in New York brought the author into contact with a group of mostly straight Muslim feminists who helped her refine a nonbinary vision of God but could not offer her a truly inclusive space.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. I think of myself ten years ago, not knowing a lot of queer elders, or just not knowing what the possibilities were for my life. Their frustration at this common all-or-nothing view about coming out (that family who don’t accept your queerness should be cut off forever) is something I share. I know what my staying entails: becoming part of the settler colonialist project that is this country, contributing toward imperialist wars with my taxes, becoming complicit in the government-backed abuse of other marginalized people. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor.

This new memoir explores Muslim identity through a queer lens

A teenage Lamya earnestly asks their teacher: “Did Maryam say that no man has touched her because she didn’t like men? Trust and faith are major themes in the story, and Lamya parallels the necessity of trusting ourselves and others during periods of doubt and isolation to the physical and spiritual journeys prophets undertake to achieve enlightenment. Where anger is allowed and joy is allowed and fun is allowed and quietness is allowed and loudness is allowed and being wrong is allowed and everything, everything, everything is rooted in love. The UK edition depicts an abstract, colourful image of a person holding a rosary and covering her face, and was created by Brooklyn-based graphic designer Maya Sariahmed. At one point, Lamya contemplates the whale that swallowed Prophet Yunus and offers the interpretation that, rather than a punishment, it may have been a means of protection – “a brief respite, a shelter, a resting place.May Allah forgive her and guide her and not let anyone else be led astray because of her and this piece of trash. Lamya’s classmates read aloud about Maryam during childbirth, where she says that she wished she had died. There are so many things that straight people don’t tell their parents growing up, there’s an entire part of so many peoples’ lives that their parents just don’t know about – and so it feels really strange to be obsessed with this idea of having to tell them everything,” she explains.