Qissa Reviews: Hijab Butch Blues

Many years ago, I took a module on documentary-making at university. I found the whole process pretty challenging - it was the only time I ever cried in front of a lecturer - but I did come away from it feeling like I’d really learnt something. Our lecturer said that to make a documentary, about anything, you need to take the personal and make it universal. You need to find a subject that moves you, that is in some way a personal story for you, and then portray it in a way that will resonate with people, even if they’ve not had the same experiences as you. And the same is true of memoir writing. How do you engage people in your own personal experiences; something that is so unique to you? Sure, you could be Prince Harry. That’s a pretty interesting life by most people’s standards. You could be a celebrity or have done something incredible, like circumnavigating the world by boat. But if you’re a ‘regular’ person, going about your quite ordinary existence, how do you connect?

Well, in Lamya H’s memoir, Hijab Butch Blues, we get a pretty good lesson. Lamya takes us forward and backward to moments throughout her life as she navigates being a queer South Asian in both the Middle East and North America. The preface is short and impactful - less than a page in total - and immediately provides the structure for the rest of the book; where Lamya draws on stories and verses from the Quran to reflect and make sense of her own experiences. In the preface this takes the shape of a verse where Ibrahim asks God to show evidence of their power. This is Lamya’s favourite verse from the Quran. It shows Ibrahim having doubts and Lamya speaks about how this is comforting to her; that belief doesn’t need to be absolute and that having questions doesn’t dampen your faith - it only strengthens it. 

It is the structure that plays a key role in setting up the first chapter of the memoir. Lamya opens with the line: ‘I am fourteen the year I read Surah Maryam.’ We hear about Lamya as a school student and the way in which she acts among her peers. She sets the scene well, adding comic moments almost immediately, and her stories of acting the class clown while simultaneously being an overachiever will resonate with many. But when we reach part two of the same chapter, we are hit with the stark contrasting reflection of the opening line: ‘I am fourteen the year I want to die’. Moving the reader from a place of familiarity - a school classroom complete with monotone teachers and sweaty teenage boys - to a deeper and more introspective layer. This simple yet shocking statement is a good insight into Lamya’s writing as a whole; she is able to guide you through moments in her life and then confront you with eye-opening truths and ideas.

While the aforementioned line may imply that you’re in for a bleak read, Hijab Butch Blues is anything but. It is life-affirming and genuinely moving throughout. While as a teenager she wanted to disappear from the world, by the end of the memoir we see that she has firmly found her place within it. Her interweaving of her own stories with that of the stories from the Quran was very cleverly done and felt very natural - like conversing with a wise friend. Comparing herself to a Jinn, considering Maryam’s sexuality, exploring the possible endings for Hajar, Lamya is an active follower of Islam and engages with the Quran in really interesting ways. The book felt really informative without ever being didactic or moralising. 

Lamya faces many challenges in her journey of self-discovery. She battles many moments of Islamophobia and homophobia, from friends and family as well as strangers. She has to deal with the complex and unfair immigration system of America. In a particularly sad recounting, she tells of the moment she is made to stop playing with two new friends in the Middle Eastern country her family has relocated to because the friends’ mum discriminates based on both her skin colour and the class associations of her birth country. You see the parent’s prejudices being passed onto their children and the way in which these notions become entrenched in society.

Even with the queer community, there are many tensions for Lamya to navigate. She speaks about the idea that you have to be out to your parents to be ‘authentically’ queer and how this is so damaging for so many who feel like they are not fully part of the LGBTQIA+ community. There is often an expectation for queer people to behave in a certain way and, if you don’t follow those social rules then you are often marginalised. Lamya doesn’t consider loud lesbian bars her scene but, when she finds a scene she think she can be a part of - a queer poetry night - she is disappointed to find that even here she is pigeonholed: 

- ‘Then one of the women said, “If you don’t mind me asking, me and my partner were curious. How do you identify?”

“Oh!” I said. “I mean, I moved around a lot as a kid and I’m not sure I identify with any place; sometimes I say I’m generically brown or South Asian.”

The two women looked at each other. “Sorry for being nosy, we meant in terms of sexuality.”

I was caught off guard. As if my being at the LGBTQ center, experiencing the poetry alongside them all evening wasn’t enough, as if I still needed to prove that I was gay. As if I needed to be anything, as if I needed to define myself to be legible.' -

You can feel the frustration in Lamya’s reaction here. She is tired of having to prove herself in so many different ways and to so many different people. 

Hijab Butch Blues feels very open and raw. You feel like you are living these frustrations - and also the other ups and downs of her life - with her. Though it moves back and forth in time, it always feels very immediate, rather than something that has been written at a remove from the moment that it happened. I was particularly moved by a moment when Lamya invites two of her friends from the mosque into her sexuality and the responses that they each give. 

It is difficult to review a memoir. Someone whose life could be dramatically different from your own has taken the time and effort to preserve their thoughts and feelings to the page, and then you come along and take your own messages from it. But I can safely say that Hijab Butch Blues is a book that I would recommend to anyone, regardless of their own life experiences.