Single and Queer?

Decades ago, when homophobia and heterosexism were more rampant than they are now, heterosexual people who had been single for a long time noticed something: other people seemed to assume that they were gay. If the single people had internalized the prevailing prejudices, they may have felt insulted by that assumption.

Of course, those kinds of bigoted attitudes have hardly disappeared (and are even seeing a resurgence in some places), but the trajectory over time has generally been toward more positive attitudes.

Over the past decades, the word “queer” has been reclaimed, mostly leaving behind the negative connotations. In fact, “queer” now has a more expansive meaning, one I consider highly laudatory. And it is very relevant to many single people, regardless of their sexual orientation or identity. Erin S. Lavender-Stott of South Dakota State University made that case compellingly in her 2023 article, “Queering singlehood,” published in the Journal of Family Theory and Review.

Queer can mean that you identify as LGBTQIA+. But it can also mean that your perspective or your behavior is unconventional, defying the prevailing norms. Queering can also mean challenging or questioning the usual ways of thinking about sexuality, gender, and family. It can involve a different value system, one that is more inclusive, more thoughtful, and less judgmental than the one that many people accept unquestioningly.

Lavender-Stott shared an observation bell hooks made in a panel discussion. Hooks said that queer wasn’t just about sex, but

“about the self that is at odds with everything around it and it has to invent and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live.”

7 Ways Some Single People Are Queer

Here are some of the ways in which many single people are queer, in the sense of challenging the prevailing ways of thinking, behaving, and valuing. The examples include some from Lavender-Stott’s article and some of my own.

1. They don’t organize their lives around a romantic partner. Being part of a committed couple is what is expected of adults, and in many places, it is what is most valued. Single people are at risk of being judged as deficient, as if being single means that there is something wrong with them. But increasingly, single people—especially the single at heart—are not buying into that. They embrace their single lives and they are flourishing.
2. If they don’t have children, single people are defying the cultural mandate that having children is what adults are supposed to do. If they do have children, they are challenging the prevailing system that values two-parent families (especially married ones) above all other ways of raising children.
3. Single people often care about close friendships and other relationships beyond just romantic ones. Romantic relationships are typically valued more than friendships and other relationships, but many single people embrace a different, more inclusive, and less hierarchical value system, and live their lives accordingly.
4. Single people sometimes have “families of choice"; they decide for themselves who counts as family. Relationships of blood, marriage, and adoption are not the only criteria. All sorts of people can be considered kin.
5. The “A” in LGBTQIA+ stands for asexual; some single (and coupled) people experience little sexual attraction toward particular people. That, of course, stands in defiance of the assumption that everyone is sexual, and it challenges the belief that being sexual is the normal and superior way to be.
6. Some single people are aromantic—they experience little or no romantic attraction. Aromantics live in defiance of the assumption that just about everyone experiences romantic attraction and that experiencing romantic attraction is the normal and superior way to be.
7. Some single (unmarried) people do have romantic relationships, but some of those relationships are queer, in the sense of challenging the usual ways of doing things. For example, they may have relationships with partners who agree not to be monogamous (“consensual non-monogamy”). Or they may practice “solo polyamory,” in which they may have multiple relationships while maintaining their own independence. Some have no desire to ride the romantic relationship escalator; they don’t expect their lives to become increasingly interwoven with their partner’s. Some resist the idea that they “belong to” another person.

The Benefits of Being Single and Queer

Not all single people see themselves as queer in any sense of the word. But for many who do, Lavender-Stott suggests, “being queer can be a way to stand outside conventional ways of understanding relationships and family, finding their own strengths in the relationships they have and build, and seeing the successes in life.”

A queer approach can be “emancipatory and liberatory, can center all important relationships, not solely those provided privileges through policies that promote bio-legal kinship.”

I’d add that a queer perspective, especially for those who do not fit into conventional molds, can be the foundation for a more authentic, fulfilling, and meaningful life.