Making Unlikely Queer Worlds

Abstract

Abstract Religion and queer lives are often thought about as antithetical, but for some LGBTQ+ persons disaffiliation is not an option. Instead, religious LGBTQ+ people seek to carve out livable spaces within their faith traditions: they make what queer theorists call “queer worlds.” This article describes the making of one such queer/religious world and considers the plausibility of applying the lens of queer worldmaking in conservative religious and political contexts that do not seem to conform to queer visions of counterculture and counter-publics. The article draws from a larger project on the activism, identities, communities, and lived experiences of Orthodox LGBT Jews in Israel, with a specific focus on Orthodox gays and lesbians. The article considers how respondents negotiate with and transform religious (and religious adjacent) everyday spaces, practices, and discourses as examples of religious queer worldmaking, with the implication that religious acts are among the range of creative acts that are part of queer worldmaking. The article makes an empirically informed case for a queer worldmaking project that is grounded in everyday religious practice, ritual, and scriptural interpretations.