Why should we care about multilingualism, gender, and sexuality?

In this introductory essay, we lay some theoretical ground to the special issue on Queering Multilingualism. We outline what we mean by ‘queering’, and why it is necessary in relation to multilingualism. Ultimately, our argument is that a focus on gender and sexuality allows us to expand our understanding of the complexity of power relations in multilingual settings, encounters, and lived experiences. With the help of examples from the contributions to the special issue we not only illustrate how language classrooms and learners’ interactions are constrained by cis-genderism and heteronormativity, but we also show how language teachers and learners can challenge gender and sexual normativities. Based on the narratives of multilingual speakers, we also argue for the importance of considering gender and sexuality in relation to other identity categories such as age, ethnicity, race, and social class. Theoretically, this requires bringing queer theoretical approaches into dialogue with intersectionality. We conclude with some reflections on the relationship between multilingualism and sexual desire, especially in contexts of conflict.