Introduction: Queer difficulty, difficult queers

To call someone “difficult” signals an unwillingness to conform to decorum. Difficult people do not follow conventions, accept what seems natural, or respect authority. Don’t Be Difficult, a board game marketed for treating “oppositional-defiant” children, teaches youngsters to distinguish The Hard Road, “a convoluted path that goes nowhere” marked by a red “Do Not Enter” sign, from The Right Road, marked by a green “The Easy Way” sign. Players-represented by “pawns” (you can’t make this stuff up)—blunder onto The Hard Road by, for instance, landing on the “You didn’t cooperate” square. They can regain The Right Road with cards that remind them, “It is important to cooperate and comply with authority.”1