Queer Attachments studies historical queer attachments in order to interrogate the attachments concealed within the term queer. Historical queer attachments are modes of relation, belonging, and politics toward which same-sex sexuality tends, adheres, or attaches under particular historical conditions. Within liberal states, it is increasingly taken for granted that same-sex sexuality leads to gay or lesbian identification, which, in turn, leads to the feeling of belonging to the gay and lesbian community and to political action on behalf of that community. Queer Attachments uses French author Jean Genet’s aversions, orientations, and attractions as a vehicle to examine what is left out of this story: that is, the range of attachments to something other than sexual identity, community, and politics to which earlier forms of same-sex sexuality may have tended. This project challenges Queer Studies to allow its affective tendencies to be unsettled and transformed by earlier modes of queer feeling.