Queer is a highly contested term, one that has a variety of uses, applications and, some would argue, misuses. Throughout this introduction and in the conclusion, we (the editors) will take the position that queer is not just synonymous for lesbian and gay. We therefore challenge one use of queer, which is as an umbrella term for LGBT. Instead, we consider queer to question the supposedly stable relationship between sex, gender, sexual desire and sexual practice. This challenge to the supposed correspondence between desires, identities and practices consequently disrupts the stability of heterosexuality that this correspondence shores up. Queer theories do not only understand sexuality as varying historically and culturally, an insight arising from historical studies of the invention of the categories of heterosexuality and homosexuality in late nineteenth-century Western societies. Queer theories also challenge heteronormativity--”the set of norms that make heterosexuality seem natural or right and that organize homosexuality as its binary opposite” (Corber and Valocchi 2003b, 4). Heteronormativity allows heterosexuality to go unmarked and unremarked upon--to be thought of as normal--by making homosexuality operate as heterosexuality’s binary opposite. Homosexuality is made to function as the marked, abnormal Other of heterosexuality. The categories of ‘heterosexuality’ and ‘homosexuality’ are, thus, mutually constitutive and cannot be understood autonomously. The intelligibility of the categories of ‘heterosexuality’ and ‘homosexuality’ is also reliant upon the opposition between ‘male’ and ‘female’ and upon the supposed natural sexual desire between these two sexes.
“Introduction, or Why Have a Book on Geographies of Sexuality?” from Geographies of Sexualities: Theory, Practices and Politics (2012) by Dr Gavin Brown, Dr Jason Lim, and Professor Kath Browne