Book Club: Hijab Butch Blues

Lamya H.'s Memoir

I just finished reading Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H. It’s a memoir about, in her words, being a queer brown hijabi Muslim immigrant in the US. I’ve been meaning to read this for awhile, but other books kept jumping the queue. I was on the fence about reading a memoir so close to having read Being Seen by Elsa Sjunneson. I’m so glad, especially since Pride Month is weeks away, that I read Hijab Butch Blues. It was good in ways I expected and ways I couldn’t have anticipated.

I lived in Egypt in 2017. I’m still closely connected to Egyptians from that time in my life. One of the few phrases of Arabic I know is انا مصري (pronounced Ana Masri), meaning I’m Egyptian. Despite living there so briefly I still feel a deep tie to the country.

Lamya’s memoir is the first I’ve read in which the author publishes under a pseudonym. This caused a constant guessing game. She talks about growing up in a poor country that borders the ocean and people speak Urdu. She never names the country though and I’ve been guessing it’s Pakistan. Her family than moves to a rich Arab country in which there is a large degree of colorism against her and her family. This country is harder to guess, but seems most likely to be the UAE, especially since it sounds like there are many international schools for kids like her and most workers of all classes are immigrants. It could also be Saudi Arabia. Since she writes under a pseudonym it’s a little unclear why she doesn’t name any country other than the US.

Something I was really hoping from this book was more insight into Islam. I absolutely got that from Hijab Butch Blues. While I’ve learned a lot about Islam, especially while living in Egypt, this was very enlightening. Each chapter includes a character from the Quran and how she relates that character’s story to her own life. This led to another guessing game as I wasn’t used to the Arabic version of several of these characters including Maryam (who I knew as Mary), Yunus (who I knew as Jonah), and Nuh (who I knew as Noah). It’s interesting to see the contrast between my Judeo-Christian knowledge and what I learned from the memoir. I also like the author’s hot take that Maryam is a prophet AND is her favorite prophet.

I was moved to tears reading how she connected Yusef and his running the granaries to queer indispensability. Yusef was beat up by his brothers for being their father’s favorite and tossed in a well to die. He was found by a caravan who sold him as a slave in Egypt. Zulaikha, the wife of his owner, gets displeased with him and she causes him to get thrown in jail. While imprisoned he becomes known for interpreting dreams. The king of Egypt has a dream that Yusef interprets to mean that there will be three bountiful harvests followed by three poor harvests. The king is so impressed Yusef is released and asked to become an advisor. Yusef accepts on the condition that he be put in charge of the granaries. This is where Lamya draws the connection to queer indispensability. Yusef knows the role will be important in the following years. He might have a fear of abandonment and grasp onto a role in which he will be so valuable he cannot again be abandoned. In the queer community many of us have been abandoned by family, friends, lovers, and employers due to our identity. This can cause us to be very self sufficient and take on roles that make us indispensable to people in our life.

This concept of queer indispensability really hit home. While I’ve only been abandoned by a few, I’ve had a fear of abandonment since I realized as a tween that I am queer. I don’t like getting gifts and generally tell people not to get me gifts. I once had a long term partner say that because I was so self sufficient people don’t see ways to take care of me and I sure as hell avoid asking for people to take care of me. I can think of ways with friends and organizations I’ve made myself indispensable. There’s a yearly event I was indispensable to for years and I was asked last year to not volunteer and now this year I don’t even want to go.

Immigration is such an important topic right now. People like Lamya have been arrested for speaking freely about genocide in Palestine. Hearing how hard immigration was before Facists were in the White House gives a deeper understanding of how awful our country is making things for immigrants.

I’ve never had long-term (ie: non-episodic) depression. Hearing about her early struggles with not wanting to exist is a valuable read for anybody to better understand depression, especially in adolescents.

I’m going to end with a spoiler, so you might want to skip everything after this paragraph. Again, I highly recommend this book, especially during this presidency.

I think all of the memoirs I’ve read before have had “happy” endings. Sarah McBride’s Tomorrow Will Be Different ends with a message of hope, Carmen Machado’s In The Dream House ends with clear advise about abusive relationships, and Omar Mohamed’s When Stars are Scattered ends with him living his dream in the US. Perhaps my understanding of a happy ending is different from Lamya’s. The book ends with her in a long term relationship that seems happy, except she can’t tell her family because she won’t risk losing them. I know this is a valid choice. People need to decide for themselves who and when to come out to. The book violates the narrative expectation that a person comes out and it either works our or the people who don’t accept it are displaced from their life. Constantly hiding an identity is exhausting. Lamya should be able to live publicly. There are certainly many things in her life she overcome. It’s just hard to accept that she’ll continue to have to live omitting important details of her beautiful life. I really value having read her story and wish her the best.