Introduction

Queer domesticity relates to homes and homemaking practices of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, trans people and other sexual and gender minorities. Heterosexual households might, meanwhile, be rather queer. Queering the home, and understanding it as a queer space, is rarely straightforward. Domestic interiors and lives are queered not only by lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, trans people residents, but also by heterosexual subjects who contest conventional domestic gender roles, spaces and identities. The domestic interior is a way of simultaneously fitting in and standing out, and provides a means for the queerly identified individual to couch and present their difference while also showing a conventional investment in the culturally central space of the home. Queer analytical interest in domestic lives is thus expanding because wider cultural and political meanings are embedded in and mobilized through more visible queer domestic practices and of course vice versa. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.