Hijab Butch Blues: A Memoir

Instead of spending Eid with her family in upstate New York, Lamya called them and lied about feeling sick. She spent the day with a woman she met at the Islamic center whom she had feelings for but didn’t know if they were reciprocated. At the end of the night, Lamya asked the woman if she was seeing any men or women. The woman was confused by the question, and Lamya decided that the woman is straight.

Lamya tells the story of Nuh (Noah). Nuh preaches Islam to people for 950 years, trying to get them to convert, but no one will listen to him.

Lamya realized that many of the girls she had crushes on were straight and could not be changed. Lamya describes three of the “not a dates” she went on with these girls, such as the girl to whom Lamya texted that “she’d make a really good lesbian,” who responded simply with “lol” (192). Lamya’s friend Zu challenged her about this trend of crushing on straight women, suggesting that it was indicative of Lamya’s internalized anti-LGBTQ+ bias. Lamya reflected that knowing that she would be rejected was easier than what would happen if she wasn’t.