Neurodivergent (Headcanon) Alley: Amina Hussain (We Are Lady Parts)

*Amina-related spoilers.*

I’ve been rewatching We Are Lady Parts, which is giving me such immense joy. And, no surprise, a big chunk of that joy is of the autistic variety—in both the way I’ve been singing “Glass Ceiling Feeling” on a loop and the way the main characters resonate with me. Today we’re looking at the one and only Amina Hussain!

One of the first things that comes to mind where Amina is concerned is “people pleaser.” At the start of the series, she has a very particular idea about how her life is supposed to go, and other people’s opinions dictate a lot of what she does. She’s such a square peg, but she’s determined to fit into the round hole that friends like Noor prescribe for her, even though her clumsy attempts to conform just make her stand out that much more.

Joining Lady Parts is antithetical to much of who Amina has told herself she is. The idea of it feels haram to her, and it certainly doesn’t seem like the thing a modest young woman seeking a husband would do. Not to mention, her overwhelming stage fright manifests physically—she either starts puking or goes into a freeze. What’s she doing joining a punk band?

A major part of Amina’s journey is overcoming the pressure and anxiety she feels all the time. Saira does everything in her power to help Amina with her stage fright, but it’s up to Amina to realize that she’s been banging her head against a wall trying to conform to a socially acceptable ideal she can never fit into. Amina comes into her power and embraces her inner punk when she learns she doesn’t have to contort herself for the sake of other people’s version of her.

Crucially, committing to Lady Parts doesn’t automatically turn Amina into a “typical” punk. She stays her dorky, prim, sunshiny self, full of fanciful romantic daydreams and lame enthusiasm. At first, she doesn’t really fit into the band any better than she does with her university friends, but as the others get to know her, the band becomes a safe space for her to explore the parts of herself that she’s denied without changing who she is to fit in. I love that when Amina dramatically declares that she’s in her “villain era,” she means she only responds to work emails during business hours, and I love that she’ll still grin for a photo with an earnest double thumbs-up. She’s doing punk her way, which, to me, actually feels a lot more punk than if she suddenly started acting more like Saira or Ayesha.

I just…she’s so great. She narrates her life like she thinks she’s a Jane Austen heroine. She regularly indulges in over-the-top daydreams. She gets nervous, talks too much, realizes she’s talking too much, and somehow thinks she can fix it by talking even more. With romantic relationships, she either comes on way too strong or completely misses a guy’s flashing signals. She grows so much, backslides, and grows again. She’s silly and anxious and brave, and I adore her!