Hijab Butch Blues (2023)-Lamya H
This book was, to me, a complete mixed bag of things I knew personally and could resonate with, and things I was learning for the first time
Content Warnings: homophobia, islamophobia, racism, xenophobia, domestic abuse, suicidal thoughts
Representation: Muslim, South Asian, Queer, Gender Non-conforming
Favorite Quote: “This is the world fourteen-year-old-me couldn’t even begin to imagine. I’m already here.”
Hijab Butch Blues is a uniquely crafted memoir that explores themes, interpretations, and teachings from Islam and figures from the Quran to apply to the author’s experiences as a queer, gender non-conforming hijabi Muslim. This structural choice is punctuated by the use of quranic names for each chapter that details their stories and the lessons learned from them by the author. In this way, the memoir follows the author from their childhood where they moved from their South Asian home country to a new Arab country where they were ostracized by the families around them, to their adolescence when they moved to the United States.
There were parts of this memoir that I could personally relate to and many parts that I could not, which I felt put me in a position as a reader where I could both learn much from this author and also deeply resonate with them. Whether through personal relation to the experiences of the author or through empathy, this book can and should be enjoyed by everyone.
Though the author is reluctant to provide detailed explanations for many things nor identifying information about themselves, the memoir is extremely accessible for readers without the cultural knowledge to recognize the references made. All references to Islamic culture is paired with comprehensible retellings of quranic stories paired with them, making for an engaging and educational reading experience.
The author’s intersectional identities—including their fluid national identity, their faith, and their queerness—are prominently explored over the course of the memoir. The author spent much of their adolescence searching for community that wholeheartedly accepts every facet of their identity and in the process of retelling this journey reflects on their experiences with discrimination as well as self-acceptance.