#lamya h

[mysweetsinfulobsessions]

HIJAB BUTCH BLUES by LAMYA H.

Alright, changing it up a bit with my book stuff but this one hit home with me. The author draws very interesting parallels between stories in the Quran and her experiences as a gay muslim woman that are very interesting. And if you think you can’t be muslim and gay, or wear a hijab and be gay, or even tackle muslim culture and queerness in one, then you’re bound to be pleasantly proved wrong with this one.

#and you know what? the way the author handles the concept of coming out and anonymity is so fucking relatable #the author remains anonymous per her own choice and thats fucking something #lgbtq books #lgbt books #book recommendations #lgbt book recs #queer book recommendations #queer books #gay muslim #lesbian muslim #queer muslim #muslim representation #muslim books #lgbt muslim #lgbtq muslim #lgbt+ books #hijab butch blues #lamya h #hijab butch blues lamya

[tigger8900]

Hijab Butch Blues, by Lamya H

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 1/2

Lamya(she/they) is a queer, non-binary, South Asian Muslim, an immigrant first to the Arab world and then again to New York City. If all that sounds like a lot, that's because it is. But she manages to deftly explore these identities, telling the story of her life by relating her experiences back to stories from the Quran and her Islamic upbringing. Whether it's exploring racism through Jinn stories, lesbianism through the character of Maryam, or relating despair over her constant attraction to straight girls to the story of Nuh and his ark, she paints a vivid, authentic picture of her life so far.

I was a little bit nervous going into this because, while I know a little about Islam, I was concerned this book might get too in-depth for me. But I shouldn't have worried at all, because this was written to be very accessible to anyone who's been exposed to the Abrahamic canon. While I often couldn't place a character immediately, as Lamya began to describe their stories I realized that I already knew most of them in broad strokes, even if the details were different. I will say that I'm sure these stories are more a personal interpretation than a scholarly overview. For example, I very much doubt that it's generally accepted among scholars of Islam that Maryam, mother of Isa(Jesus, in Christianity), was a lesbian, or that Allah is explicitly a non-binary being. But it's Lamya's right to seek her own truth in tradition, and I appreciate her sharing that interpretation.

This memoir is, in the grand queer tradition, organized by topic rather than being presented in linear order. She skips forward and backward through the chapters of her life as needed, from her teenage years to college, back to her childhood then ahead to her late 20s, back to college, and so on. I found the ordering to be easy to read, but it's something to be prepared for going in if you're not familiar with this style of memoir.

#books #book review #hijab butch blues #lamya h #memoir #lgbtq #queer muslim

[flanarchy]

"Around 1am that night, he texts me. I think you'd make a beautiful trans man. Have you ever thought about transitioning? I start laughing when I get his text. It's late and I've been procrastinating sleeping, so I'm a little loopy, and once I start laughing, I can't stop. The question feels so patronizing: as if I've never thought about gender and how I choose to present myself, how I dress, how I stand, how I crop my hair short, and what this means. As if I've never thought about what it would be like to live as a man instead, the relief that would come from passing, with not having to face the everyday violence and humiliations of living in my body. As if I've never thought about how I don't want that, how every cell in my body recoils at that thought of being a man, and yet how harrowing it is that the only way I can get out of my bed and make it through the day is by wearing masculinity on my body. As if I've never held dear my feminist rage, never thought about how I feel so politically aligned with womanhood and yet hate inhabiting it, hate it when my body is read as such. As if the only way to be trans is to transition to a binary gender, as if I can't exist as I have been, in some space in between or beyond, using she or they pronouns and seething when people call me a woman and laughing when people tell me I should transition."

–Lamya H., Hijab Butch Blues

#bold is mine #this is the most similar thing ive read to how i feel #not exactly it--i don't seethe at being called a woman and dont hate inhabiting it #but god. #the political alignment with being a woman and loving being a woman and yet. needing the masculinity on my body #hijab butch blues #lamya h

[pieandpaperbacks]

Currently reading: Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H.

I’ve waited for over a year for my library to get this book in, and I’m so excited to finally be reading it. Hijab Butch Blues is a complex memoir about Lamya’s experiences as a queer Muslim, and how they’ve navigated identity, belonging, and community, both in regards to their religion and sexuality. It’s helped me challenge how I view the relationship between religion and queer identity.

#bookblr #books #currently reading #hijab butch blues #lamya h #book recommendations #book review

[lgbtqreads]

Most Anticipated Non-Fiction: January-June 2023

Most Anticipated Non-Fiction: January-June 2023

This post contains titles published by HarperCollins. Please note that the HarperCollins Union has been on strike since 11/10/22 to get a fair contract for their workers, and this site very much supports that effort. Visit the HarperCollins Union linktree to learn how you can support their fight for a fair contract: linktr.ee/hcpunion. I Am Ace: Advice on Living Your Best Asexual Life by Cody…

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#Amelia Possanza #Bisexual Men Exist #Black on Black #Choosing Family: A Memoir of Queer Motherhood and Black Resistance #Daniel Black #Elliot Page #Essays #Francesca Royster #From Here #Hijab Butch Blues #I Am Ace #Lamya H #Leg #Luma Mufleh #Memoirs #Pageboy #R.K. Russell #Shantel Gabrieal Buggs #Stacy Jane Grover #Tar Hollow Trans #The Yards Between Us #Unsafe Words #Vaneet Mehta

[itchydolphin]

shes a beaut :’)

#bookblr #bookworm #reading #hijab butch blues #queer muslim #memoir #lamya h #I LOVE THIS BOOK #this is my pic

[hastthouconsideredthetetrapod]

Love this book.

#booklog #cita2 #lamya h

[randomtwospirit]

Lamya H. - Hijab Butch Blues - A Reflection

Part 1

Me: 🧡 The Father: What’s goin’ on? Me: all was fine and then I picked up this book and it’s been hitting just close enough to home to make me want to break down The Father: Well, there’s your problem. You should never read! Me: ok but then I wouldn’t be shown myself in a mirror like this

#lamya h #hijab butch blues #lgbtq2ia+ #gay #trans #queer #exjw #srd

[the-novel-approach-reviews]

Review: Hijab Butch Blues: A Memoir by Lamya H

Title: Hijab Butch Blues Author: Lamya H Publisher: Dial Press Length: 305 Pages Category: Memoir Rating: 5 Stars At a Glance: Everything in this book is a baring of soul and revelation of the strength and courage it takes to live with authenticity and without apology. I’m entirely grateful to have found this book and that Lamya H bared her vulnerabilities and truths so…

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#5 stars #Dial Press #Faith #Family #Lamya H #Memoir

[justabooklovingmetalhead]

Belle of the Ball & Hijab Butch Blues got nominated for lammy awards!!!!!

#belle of the ball #mari costa #hijab butch blues #lamya h #lammy awards #Lambda Literary Awards #36th Annual Lambda Literary Awards #lammy award #obviously different categories but still #i haven’t read any of the other ones #but I hope hijab butch blues wins it’s one of the best and most powerful books I’ve read #belle of the ball was also rlly good. I mean obviously in a different way but still #🤞 for both of them

[wttnblog]

The 7 Best Nonfiction Books of 2023

Welcome back to the 2023 Best of the Year Lists! Last year, we ranked the 50 best books of 2022. This year, we broke books down into two separate categories depending on if they are fiction or nonfiction. This makes both lists a bit shorter, but it provides better granularity and ensures a much more fair ranking. I was the only one on the team to read and review nonfiction books this year, so…

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#best nonfiction #best of 2023 #by Jocelyn #cody daigle-orians #craig seligman #elliot page #hijab butch blues #i am ace #lamya h #maria bamford #nonfiction books #nonfiction books 2023 #pageboy #quietly hostile #radical intimacy #samantha irby #sophie k rosa #sure i&039;ll join your cult #who does that bitch think she is #wttn best of #wttn best of 2023

[haveyoureadthispoll]

A queer hijabi Muslim immigrant survives her coming-of-age by drawing strength and hope from stories in the Quran in this daring, provocative, and radically hopeful memoir. When fourteen-year-old Lamya H realizes she has a crush on her teacher--her female teacher--she covers up her attraction, an attraction she can't yet name, by playing up her roles as overachiever and class clown. Born in South Asia, she moved to the Middle East at a young age and has spent years feeling out of place, like her own desires and dreams don't matter, and it's easier to hide in plain sight. To disappear. But one day in Quran class, she reads a passage about Maryam that changes everything: when Maryam learned that she was pregnant, she insisted no man had touched her. Could Maryam, uninterested in men, be . . . like Lamya? 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 juxtaposes her coming out with Musa liberating his people from the pharoah; asks if Allah, who is neither male nor female, might instead be nonbinary; and, drawing on the faith and hope Nuh needed to construct his ark, begins to build a life of her own--ultimately finding that the answer to her lifelong quest for community and belonging lies in owning her identity as a queer, devout Muslim immigrant. This searingly intimate memoir in essays, spanning Lamya's childhood to her arrival in the United States for college through early-adult life in New York City, tells a universal story of courage, trust, and love, celebrating what it means to be a seeker and an architect of one's own life.

#book: hijab butch blues #author: lamya h. #genre: lgbt #genre: memoir #genre: non fiction #year: 2020s

[haveyoureadthistransbook]

Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H.

goodreads

When fourteen-year-old Lamya H realizes she has a crush on her teacher--her female teacher--she covers up her attraction, an attraction she can't yet name, by playing up her roles as overachiever and class clown. Born in South Asia, she moved to the Middle East at a young age and has spent years feeling out of place, like her own desires and dreams don't matter, and it's easier to hide in plain sight. To disappear. But one day in Quran class, she reads a passage about Maryam that changes everything: when Maryam learned that she was pregnant, she insisted no man had touched her. Could Maryam, uninterested in men, be . . . like Lamya?

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 juxtaposes her coming out with Musa liberating his people from the pharoah; asks if Allah, who is neither male nor female, might instead be nonbinary; and, drawing on the faith and hope Nuh needed to construct his ark, begins to build a life of her own--ultimately finding that the answer to her lifelong quest for community and belonging lies in owning her identity as a queer, devout Muslim immigrant.

This searingly intimate memoir in essays, spanning Lamya's childhood to her arrival in the United States for college through early-adult life in New York City, tells a universal story of courage, trust, and love, celebrating what it means to be a seeker and an architect of one's own life.

Mod opinion: I haven't read this memoir yet, but I love the title!

#hijab butch blues #lamya h. #polls #trans lit #trans literature #trans books #lgbt lit #lgbt literature #lgbt books #memoirs #nonfiction #nonbinary #own voices #to read

[lakecore]

no cuz why does Surah ‘Abasa always make me cry

me knowing i’ve been the blind man + me knowing if i was the Prophet (pbuh) and that surah was abt me i’d be inconsolable for days like fr locked in my room doing istighfar for hours on end

#it’s the rsd 😔 #for both the blind man and the Prophet #maybe it’s bc every time i read it i think abt Lamya H’s retelling of it in Hijab Butch Blues #and that made me SOB like teardrops on the page ugly sob #anyway #we sensitive 😔💔 #muslim revert #revert islam #lgbt muslim #balkan muslim #queer muslim

[iibislintu]

reading Hijab Butch Blues and it turns out i don't have a problem reading a book in one go if the book just suits me well

... hoo boy the emotions! so much crying from recognising things, and so much emotion from the feeling of sameness at certain points

... and the queer readings of the Qur'an are going to give me A LOT to think about

#hijab butch blues #lamya h. #islam #quran #queer islam

[read-alert]

This does come with the caveat that I can't quite remember if the characters in How to Find a Princess, Funeral Songs for Dying Girls, and Chain-Gang All-Stars identity specifically as lesbians or not, but they are all sapphic. Full titles under the cut!

EDIT: Apparently Alice Walker is a big proponent of a famous antisemitic conspiracy theorist, David Icke, so be aware of that when considering The Color Purple

Happy Lesbian Visibility Week! 📚📖🏳️‍🌈

Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

How to Find a Princess by Alyssa Cole

Cantoras by Carolina De Robertis

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta

Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg

Funeral Songs for Dying Girls by Cherie Dimaline

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

#lesbian #lesbian reads #lesbian books #lesbian lit #queer books #queer reads #queer lit #lesbian visibility week #bookblr #hijab butch blues #in the dream house #how to find a princess #cantoras #the color purple #stone butch blues #funeral songs for dying girls #chain gang all stars