Queering the Closet: Defying Gender Binarism through Queer Aesthetics of Style and Expression

One’s closet remains very ‘personal’ yet so much political in its existence. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (1990), in her seminal work Epistemology of the Closet, takes up the notion of ‘closet’ as a metaphor for concealing one's sexual identity, and the act of ‘coming out’ of the closet as an expression of one’s identity in public. Utilising Sedgwick's perspective on the closet and appropriating it not only in terms of sexual orientation but also in ways of gender self-expression, this study explores how queer individuals in India are coming out of the closet and expressing themselves in public spaces. “Queer,” once a hidden population, has only recently started to integrate into mainstream society in India. Though the community has been studied extensively, research on the feelings and everyday practices surrounding queer style remains scarce. This paper addresses this gap by mapping onto the daily, subtle, and symbolic ways in which queer people use clothing and appearance to resist domination. The study highlights clothing as a powerful tool for self-expression, identity assertion, and political resistance, while informing the need for inclusive fashion options within the Indian market. This empirical research employs a qualitative methodology to explore the queer aesthetics of the rainbow community of India and examine how fashion and identity intersect in the expression of queerness. Using James Scott’s framework of “everyday forms of resistance,” this research sets out to investigate (a) how non-binary individuals navigate, resist, and subvert rigid heteronormative, gendered, and cultural norms through clothing and appearance, and (b) in what ways their choice of style and expressions relates to how they feel. The research follows a descriptive-phenomenological method to analyse information collected through in-depth interviews using a semi-structured interview guide. In addition to the interviews, the participants' Instagram accounts are observed to gather visual representations of their daily style practices. Purposive and snowball sampling are used to recruit participants, and the study population includes students pursuing higher education in Puducherry who self-identify as queer, non-binary, or non-conforming.