by Rizwana Bi

Lamya H is a New York-based non-binary queer Muslim writer whose work explores the intersections of faith, identity, belonging and queerness. Their memoir, Hijab Butch Blues, interweaves personal experience with stories from the Quran, offering a deeply reflective exploration of spirituality, survival, love and selfhood.

Some books give you answers. Others leave you with better questions.

Lamya H’s memoir, Hijab Butch Blues, is one of the latter. Weaving together stories from the Quran with their own experiences of faith, queerness and belonging, the book refuses easy binaries. Faith and queerness are not presented as opposing forces to be reconciled, but as realities that coexist, overlap and shape one another.

One of the ideas that stayed with me long after finishing the book was Lamya’s reframing of “coming out” as “inviting in”. It’s a subtle shift, but a powerful one. Rather than positioning disclosure as a public obligation, “inviting in” centres trust, choice and relationship. It challenges the assumption that authenticity must always be measured by visibility, reminding us that people should be able to decide for themselves who they invite into their lives and when.

Lamya invites us to think differently. What if belonging is not about being allowed in, but about recognising that queer Muslims have always been part of our communities, our histories and our futures?

That tension between visibility and protection runs throughout the memoir. Lamya writes under a pseudonym and reflects openly on the pressures placed on queer people to be visible, vocal and publicly legible. In a culture that often treats visibility as the ultimate goal, Hijab Butch Blues asks a more complicated question: what if privacy is not the opposite of authenticity, but part of it?

The memoir also made me think about language, naming and who gets to tell their own story. I was fascinated to learn that the memoir was initially titled Maryam is a Dyke before becoming Hijab Butch Blues, a title that nods to Leslie Feinberg’s Stone Butch Blues. The shift feels significant. The original title is deliberately provocative, while the final title situates the memoir within a broader queer literary tradition, holding together multiple identities, histories and conversations at once.

Perhaps the idea I keep returning to most, however, is what Lamya describes as queer indispensability. Too often conversations about LGBTQIA+ people focus on inclusion: how communities can make space for queer people, tolerate difference or allow people to belong. Lamya invites us to think differently. What if belonging is not about being allowed in, but about recognising that queer Muslims have always been part of our communities, our histories and our futures?

For me, this feels like a particularly important challenge. It shifts the conversation away from permission and towards value. Away from asking whether queer people belong, and towards recognising what is lost when their voices, experiences and contributions are absent. It reminds us that inclusion is not simply about opening the door, but about acknowledging that queer Muslims have always been here and have always helped shape our communities, whether recognised or not. 

Hijab Butch Blues doesn’t offer neat conclusions. Instead, it creates space for complexity, contradiction and possibility. In a world that often demands certainty, simple answers and clear sides, Lamya offers something far more valuable: permission to sit with complexity, resist false choices and imagine new ways of belonging.