At the age of four, her parents had dragged her from her unknown, Urdu-speaking country of origin to live in a "rich Arab country," "in a "large metropolitan city" located "away from everything and everyone we knew." She's stuck in a system of "unspoken racial hierarchies." She becomes fascinated by her female economics teacher: "A hyperawareness of her coordinates at all times, like there's a long invisible string connecting us." She realizes she's gay - though she doesn't have the language for it yet. Lamya, a bored 14-year-old "nerd" who "never skips Quran class," wants to die. "My God," they write, "transcends gender." In the new memoir Hijab Butch Blues, Lamya H takes what Leslie Feinberg started in 1993 with Stone Butch Blues - a complex depiction of gender and labor politics in 1970s-era America - and makes it true and holy. Binaries be damned: What if God is genderless? What if God is trans?
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |