![]() ![]() 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. Their hesitation feels normal to me: Lamya doesn’t know whether to trust someone, not just in telling others but in this information somehow getting back to their family or their community through the Muslim grapevine. I’ve had this conversation so many times: explaining why the increasingly romanticised vision of coming out doesn’t match the reality for every queer person. A brown queer friend of theirs automatically assumes that Lamya came out to their parents already, even going so far as to say that Lamya owes “this visibility to the queer community”.Īdvocates for queer visibility on Christopher Street Day 2021 (CSD) in Stuttgart, Germany. Lamya critiques the common presumption among their LGBTQIA+ peers that the only way to be authentically queer is to be out to family. Among my queer Muslim friends, this is a common story because it’s an act of self-preservation. Liv and Lamya agree a set of rules that they follow so the family are none the wiser about the true nature of their relationship. The homophobic attitudes relayed in Hijab Butch Blues are all things I have heard before: that queerness is unnatural, a mental health condition, or the result of jinn (spirit) possession.Īnecdotally, I know of how these exact attitudes lead to LGBTQIA+ Muslims being subject to conversion practices, as if queerness is something that needs fixing.įor me, it made perfect sense reading that Lamya introduced their partner (Liv) to their family as a friend, not a girlfriend. Muslims are no strangers to being shunned for being different, so it frustrates me, too, that cultural conservatism still lingers in the Muslim community. 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.īut this is the same community, the same family, that Lamya notes would preside over funeral prayers and who they stand side-by-side with during long Ramadan prayers. 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. 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. They write how “it still feels unthinkable” to tell their family they’re gay, or anything about their relationship status, and that this might be the case forever. That is to say, they don’t – not to their family, anyway. The most familiar element of this memoir was Lamya’s coming out journey. Lamya explores what it means to be Muslim and South Asian in these spaces, too, unafraid in calling out colourism and classism in the communities they are part of. 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. The book is titled as an ode to Leslie Feinberg’s award-winning 1993 novel, Stone Butch Blues. More than that – in that mirror, I could see my queer Muslim friends beside me, the homophobia in Muslim spaces and the Islamophobia and racism in queer spaces.Īt the forefront throughout were their tumultuous experiences – from introducing their partners to family as “friends”, to latent Islamophobia at airports and racist microaggressions at school and work. I too am a queer Muslim hijabi activist who writes under a pseudonym and isn’t out to family. ![]() It wasn’t an exact reflection by any means, but I could recognise so many of the experiences recounted in this captivating memoir. In many ways, reading Hijab Butch Blues felt like looking in a mirror. Fellow queer Muslim hijabi writer Deenah al-Aqsa reviews. The memoir Hijab Butch Blues sees writer Lamya H navigate hierarchies as a queer nonbinary Muslim.
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