Queering heteronormativity at home: older gay Londoners and the negotiation of domestic materiality

This article looks at older gay male homemaking experiences of engaging with domestic material objects. Using London as a case study it draws from 11 in-depth semi-structured interviews. These narratives are used to argue that the homemaking practices of older gay men can advance a queer theorised goal of queering heteronormativity. Throughout the article, domestic materiality and participants' relationship to their sexual minority identity forms the central focus; the empirical analysis highlights the obvious, subtle and even hidden ways interviewees subvert heteronormativity through relating to possessions in the home. On top of this, the article also looks to transcript excerpts to show that some interviewees consciously avoid relating their sexuality in the process of engaging with material objects in the home; this too, it is argued, can be understood as a political act challenging normative understandings of home. The article aims to complement a small but growing body of literature situated at the intersection of feminist work on domestic materiality, geographies of gerontology, ageing masculinity and queer theory.