Across scholarship on gender and sexuality, binaries like female versus male and gay versus straight have been problematized as a symbol of the stigmatization and erasure of non-normative subjects and practices. The chapters in Queer Excursions offer a series of distinct perspectives on these binaries, as well as on a number of other, less immediately apparent dichotomies that nevertheless permeate the gendered and sexual lives of speakers. Several chapters focus on the limiting or misleading qualities of binaristic analyses, while others suggest that binaries are a crucial component of social meaning within particular communities of study. Rather than simply accepting binary structures as inevitable, or discarding them from our analyses entirely based on their oppressive or reductionary qualities, this volume advocates for a re-theorization of the binary that affords more complex and contextually-grounded engagement with speakers' own orientations to dichotomous systems. It is from this perspective that contributors identify a number of diverging conceptualizations of binaries, including those that are non-mutually exclusive, those that liberate in the same moment that they constrain, those that are imposed implicitly by researchers, and those that re-contextualize familiar divisions with innovative meanings. Each chapter offers a unique perspective on locally salient linguistic practices that help constitute gender and sexuality in marginalized communities. As a collection, Queer Excursions argues that researchers must be careful to avoid the assumption that our own preconceptions about binary social structures will be shared by the communities we study.

Table of Contents1. Opposites attract: Theorizing binarity in sociocultural linguisticsJenny Davis (University of Kentucky)Lal Zimman (Reed College)Joshua Raclaw (Metropolitan State University of Denver)2. The discursive construction of sex: Remaking and reclaiming the gendered body in talk about genitals among trans menLal Zimman (Reed College)3. "Speech creates a kind of commitment": Queering HebrewOrit Bershtling (Bar Ilan University)4. "More than just 'gay Indians": Intersecting articulations of Two-Spirit gender, sexuality, and indigenousnessJenny Davis (University of Kentucky)5. Language and non-normative gender and sexuality in IndonesiaEvelyn Blackwood (Purdue University)6. Sexual subjectivities and lesbian and gay narratives of belonging in IsraelErez Levon (Queen Mary, University of London)7. The sex machine, the full-body tattoo, and the hermaphrodite: Gay sexual cinema, audience reception and fractal recursivityWilliam Leap (American University)8. Neither in nor out: Taking the "T" out of the closetElijah Edelman (University of Maryland, College Park), elijah.edelman@american.edu9. Acting like women, acted upon: Gender and agency in Hausa sexual narrativesRudolf P. Gaudio (State University of New York, Purchase)10. The emergence of the unmarked: Queer theory, language ideology, and formal linguisticsRusty Barrett (University of Kentucky)